New Games |
- Weekend PC download deals - Enlight, Sanctum, Tropico
- Get hype: Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 out next week
- The DTOID Show: It's Naked Pizza Dance-Off Time!
- Hitman: Absolution devs add commentary to old trailer
- Five hours with Need for Speed: The Run
- Battlefield 3's showing off Back to Karkand
- Epic Games justifies Gears of War 3's on-disc DLC
- Michael Bay's full Need for Speed: The Run TV advert
- Autumn Games speak on the mechanics of Skullgirls
- A woman cries in this BioShock Infinite voice actor video
- Mr. Destructoid blowin' minds across the tri-state area
- GameStop's 'Midnight Warfare' Events in NYC & LA
- Live show: A.D.D. Friday on Mash Tactics
- F*** It, The DTOID Show Will Do it Live
- Review: Dungeon Siege III: Treasures of the Sun
- This weekend on TwitchTV: Also Binding of Isaac
- Devs say PS3 has the performance advantage over Xbox 360
- Three PC builds under $1000 to make Skyrim look its best
- The LEGO Universe ends January 31st
| Weekend PC download deals - Enlight, Sanctum, Tropico Posted: 04 Nov 2011 04:00 PM PDT Ok, haven't done a weekend roundup for a few weeks now, so please excuse my tardiness but there's plenty to cover. Good Old Games has its sale, this time on the catalog of Enlight Software, makers of the Capatalism and Seven Kingdoms franchises as well as Restaurant Empire. Purchase all the games in the bundle for a 60% discount. Steam has a couple of different offers this weekend, as well as a slyly hidden gem. The big offer is 50% off the popular FPS/tower defense game Sanctum. Not only is the game's price cut in half but it's a free weekend too meaning you can try before you buy. The main game is priced at $4.99 but there's also 50% off the bundle that includes the soundtrack and all the DLC. The other big Steam deal this weekend is for the Tropico series, with discounts of between 33% and 66% on Tropico 3 and this year's Tropico 4, plus their various DLC packs and strategy guides. The final offer right now is on L.A. Noire which itself has a 10% discount on pre-purchase but buying Team Bondi's police procedure game also allows you to save 75% off any Rockstar game for this weekend only. So if you missed the recent Rockstar sale and you're planning on getting L.A. Noire, you're in line for some extra savings. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Get hype: Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 out next week Posted: 04 Nov 2011 03:00 PM PDT
Are you ready to take your workout to a whole new level? Well then, stop going to that useless gym. Get off that bicycle, and for God's sake, quit walking that corgi. You've got videogames to play! And now the game you've been waiting for all year is finally out next week. That's right, Ubisoft's Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012. I know it isn't out yet, but can't you just smell the GOTY awards already? It just could be the B.O, but I have a good feeling about this one. A motion-controlled exercise game. Who would've thought to put those two things together? Pure innovation. And with Ubisoft and Kinect involved, what could possibly go wrong? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The DTOID Show: It's Naked Pizza Dance-Off Time! Posted: 04 Nov 2011 02:10 PM PDT Great news, everyone! Today's live episode (if you can call it that) of The Destructoid Show was a rousing failure, in all the right ways! You see, as a reward for reaching 50,000 YouTube subscribers, our producer Zac promised us a pizza party. The downside is that we never actually thought we'd make it that far, so in return we promised him that we'd dance live on the show if it ever happened. It's a win-win situation for everybody! Well, except for that poor piñata. (May he rest in peace.) Anyway, news-wise, people are going nuts for Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim's got a bitchin' soundtrack, Sony's cutting down on game sharing, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Patriots got an official announcement. Last but not least, if we haven't said it enough times already, thanks so much to each and every one of you who's tuned into the show over the past year. We started this thing over a year ago, fully expecting to be shunned by the website's dedicated and long-time readers. Instead, we were met with open arms and a flood of (mostly) positive encouragement, and I couldn't be happier that Destructoid is the place we now call our home. Thanks for sticking with us, y'all! We owe you one. /fistbump | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hitman: Absolution devs add commentary to old trailer Posted: 04 Nov 2011 02:00 PM PDT
A few weeks ago a huge 17 minute gameplay video of Hitman: Absolution surfaced that showcased a significant peek into what you can expect from the finished product. Square Enix has released the same footage again, but this time they brought two directors from IO Interactive to add commentary through the whole thing. The commentary provides a lot of good insight into how major design decisions were made during development; such as the "Instinct" feature which only came about because the developers couldn't remember the paths of the AI's themselves. Also, the part where they try to justify the hippie hangout is surprisingly humorous. If you're really curious about the game design process or you're just a diehard Hitman fan, definitely give this video a watch. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Five hours with Need for Speed: The Run Posted: 04 Nov 2011 01:30 PM PDT In a little more than two weeks, Need for Speed: The Run will be released to the masses. Before it joins the avalanche of holiday titles this November, though, I had the opportunity to play the game's single-player and multiplayer at length. In a nutshell, it's fun. Multiplayer is entertaining, and the less-than-anticipated story mode is starting to turn me into a bit of a believer. I'm optimistic about The Run's release, but reservedly so. Need for Speed: The Run (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [both previewed], Wii, 3DS, PC) If you haven't had a chance to catch our last preview, The Run casts players as Jack Rourke. A hothead who caught himself in some undisclosed trouble, Jack enters a high-stakes street race from San Francisco to New York in order to win the $25,000,000 prize and a chance to save his neck. This increased emphasis on story has soured quite a bit of Need For Speed fans (myself included) -- particularly the inclusion of quick-time events (QTEs). After a good three hours with the single-player campaign, I have mixed, yet optimistic feelings about the story mode. It's a great setup for the game with a strong opening sequence and a race on the Golden Gate Bridge that I really got a kick out of. But as the story goes on, it starts to feel paper thin in some points. Characters get introduced with only a few lines of back story during a loading screen, then after a race or two, they vanish from the plot entirely. For example, when I was leaving Las Vegas, en route to Chicago, a rival character's back story is mentioned in the loading screen, then I'm racing against that character in the next event. Our race ends with the rival's car spinning out of control and crashing into a fiery ball of sure-death. And that's all you see of him. Conversely though, the minimalist approach to storytelling does mean that you spend less time in a cutscene and more time actually racing. As a setup for the Run's "cross-country illegal race" hook, the story works -- and works great at that. As a means to actually tell a good story, I'm not sold. At the end of my time with the single-player demo, I found myself wanting to continue playing more for the actual racing than the story. It did have its moments, and a part of me does want to finish Jack's tale, but I'll take it more as a breather in between racers. Oh, and as for the QTEs, they still suck. The sequences they play in are actually a lot of fun to look at. I would have much preferred to just watch them as a normal cutscene. Luckily, I only had to play two of them during my time with the game, and they were over after a minute. The actual races in the single-player mode include the standard placement races where you have to finish first, and a time attack mode where you have to pass checkpoints to keep your clock running. The Run also features rival races where you face off against a single opponent with much more aggressive and intelligent AI. I did start to feel as if these modes followed a bit of a formula in terms of how often and in what order you play them in, but just a soon as I started getting tired of them, the game would throw in wild cards such as cops and environmental hazards. Hopefully the game will keep throwing in enough variance to keep things interesting throughout. Once you've burned through The Run's story mode, players can hop into the new Challenge Series. Challenge Series is essentially a trial and challenge mode that takes tracks from the single-player and mixes up the races, cars, and track conditions. There is a good amount of variety here with over 70 challenges ranging in difficulty. The first challenge I played seemed simple enough as all I had to do was finish first, but the aggressive AI made completing the challenge a task my skills clearly were not up to. Others took a few tries and some I just breezed through on my first attempt. Like all the modes in The Run, Challenge Series incorporates Autolog, allowing players to post times against their friends. New to The Run is handy little feature that shows your friends' best times on a certain track or challenge on your HUD. Apart from bragging rights though, beating a buddy's time grants bonus XP and new cars, as does completing challenges. What's better than beating a friends best time though? How about just beating them. Multiplayer made its debut at this event, showing off just about everything. The core of The Run's multiplayer mode is in its playlist system. Playlist are divided by the types of cars you will be using (American Muscle playlist, the Exotic imports playlist, etc.) and what tracks you will play on. So while the American Muscle playlist may feature Mustangs racing through the heartlands, the Underground playlist will have players racing in tuned import cars down city streets at night. Each playlist also comes with its own unique challenges (pass 25 racers, get 50 feet of air, drive X amount of miles with nitro) for added XP and car unlocks. Before heading into a playlist, players can take advantage of one of Autolog's newest -- and long overdue -- features. Analogous to the party systems of the Halo and Call of Duty series, Autolog now allows players to link up together online and jump in and out of playlists as a group. A curious omission from Hot Pursuit, but I'm just glad to see it finally here. Once in an actual race, you'll notice that The Run handles its events differently. Rather than joining a race, playing, then going back to the menu, The Run actually launches a series of three or four races before players return to the lobby. This also means that whatever car selection you make, you're stuck with for the duration of the series. It's a curious decision, and one that has great potential for frustration. In my time with the multiplayer, I found myself frustrated at times because I was stuck with a bad car selection for multiple races. One welcome addition is a new jackpot system that adds randomly selected rewards, determined at the start of a series. These range from XP multipliers for the racer that does the best overall, or car unlocks for the top three players in a session. Another new edition to multiplayer is the ability to join a match that is already in session. Basically, players that join mid-race will be placed just barely behind the racer in last place. This will certainly lead to faster matchmaking, but then again, that does mean you are at the mercy of how far behind the person in last is. There is some balancing with this in that the farther back a player is, the easier they will gain nitrous. Even so, if the rest of the pack has a commanding lead over you as soon as you join, comebacks could be come that much more daunting. Jackpots could be rendered useless as motivation to players who join a session into its second or third race. As a huge fan of Hot Pursuit, I want to love The Run. A few reservations aside, the campaign is really growing on me, and I found myself genuinely enjoying Jack's story at times. The Challenge Series is shaping up to be a great test of skill, and competing through Autolog in the single-player modes looks as fun as it's ever been. That said, the changes in multiplayer have my excitement in check. The jackpot system is brilliant, but locking in a player's car choice for an entire series could just lead to more players taking it safe with their selections, rather than experimenting and taking a loss or two. Being able to party up with friends together is a great addition. But joining a game mid-race just doesn't make the most sense for this genre. It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out come November 15th. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Battlefield 3's showing off Back to Karkand Posted: 04 Nov 2011 01:00 PM PDT
EA has released the trailer for the Battlefield 3 Back to Karkand expansion pack, and it's looking pretty explosive. The expansion's going to feature 4 new maps along with new weapons and vehicles. Classic Conquest Assault is set to make a return as well. It looks pretty good! Now despite how well the game does against Call of Duty, no doubt a ton of you have bought the game on its first print run. That means you're getting that content for free when it releases in December, while other players that got on the boat late will be paying 14.99. I gave the game a spin not too long ago, and oddly enough it was nowhere near as action packed as this. Clearly I should not just be playing standard deathmatch mode. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Epic Games justifies Gears of War 3's on-disc DLC Posted: 04 Nov 2011 01:00 PM PDT The $10 Horde Command Pack released for Gears of War 3 this week. The file size for this content is 1.42 MB, and that predictably upset some people. Epic Games' Rod Fergusson has tried to explain why much of this DLC was already on the disc in a chat with Kotaku. "We didn't want to artificially pad [the download]," he says. Given Gears of War 3's delayed release, the team opted to treat the disc as "another delivery mechanism" rather than having all players download a large compatibility pack, even if they had no intention of getting the Horde Command add-on. My personal stance is that if the stuff isn't going to be free, which I think it should be in many cases, then it might as well be located on a disc. Saves me download time and space on my hard drive. If I were to complain about anything, it'd be over the premium weapon skins at launch. Not this. Gears of War 3 Creator Explains Why They’re Charging To Unlock Content that’s Already on the Disc [Kotaku] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Michael Bay's full Need for Speed: The Run TV advert Posted: 04 Nov 2011 12:30 PM PDT
A couple of days ago we learned that Michael Bay was working with EA to make a trailer for Need for Speed: The Run that would serve as a TV commercial. Now that the actual commercial has been released, our eyes can take a look and process it into our brains. It's directed by Michael Bay, has explosions, women, cars and yes, explosions. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Autumn Games speak on the mechanics of Skullgirls Posted: 04 Nov 2011 12:00 PM PDT
In this new trailer, indie fighting game developers Reverge Labs have shed some light on some of the features in their upcoming title Skullgirls. Lead designer Mike "Mike Z" Zaimont, a former tournament fighter, is trying to address known problems regarding balance that he sees in competitive fighting games today. Zaimont's answer to these issues are an anti-infinite combo system and a small protection window from high-low attack combos; as well as custom team sizes and custom assists. The anti-infinite combo system was put in place to balance out those players who are constantly throwing out a barrage of easily repeatable attacks. Skullgirl's engine can recognize these patterns and give the player on the receiving end a chance to break the combo by hitting any button. Autumn Games has also given players a grace period during blocking either low or high attacks. One strategy utilized by some players in team-based fighting games is having your character attack low while calling in another character on your team to attack high, essentially creating an unblockable attack. With this grace period in place, players will have an opportunity to recompose and strike back. The custom team sizes and assists also put a interesting spin on team-based fighting. If a player decides to go into a three versus one match, they still have a fair chance of getting the victory. In these fights, the single character will be able to deal out and take more damage then their team of opponents. The custom assists also grant team players the ability to call on the special moves of their allies throughout the battle, and by addressing the high-low unblockable attacks of assists in other games, gives the team player more combo options available while keeping the match a fair one. In one final note, Skullgirls looks to be pushed back until early 2012. So fighting game fans will need to hold on a little bit longer to get their fix of cute girls and crazy hair. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A woman cries in this BioShock Infinite voice actor video Posted: 04 Nov 2011 11:30 AM PDT Remember that video released last week showing how the voice actors of Booker and Elizabeth in Irrational Games' upcoming BioShock Infinite do their thing -- you know, that voice acting thing? Well today sees the release of part 2 of the little "The People Behind Booker and Elizabeth" series, and they make the person voicing Elizabeth cry. Like the first video, this one also offers an amazing insight into how the people behind the voices of video game characters conduct their work, as well as the techniques used to get these people to sound like they're in the moment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mr. Destructoid blowin' minds across the tri-state area Posted: 04 Nov 2011 11:00 AM PDT Destructoid community's own Adam Bittel a.k.a. Johnny Luchador is a man of the people. You see him mingling it up on Twitch.tv, and now here he is on the local news, rockin' the Mr. Destructoid luchador mask and melting faces. Adam tells me that his buddy Blaine does a sports-themed current events segment on News 25 WEHT based out of Evansville, Indiana. As part of a comedy bit, Blaine invited Adam's luchador alter ego to play a little guitar and touch people in a way Tenacious D could only dream. I can't begin to understand what this "AFR" business is all about, but does this video need any context? Hell no! Next stop, Mr. Destructoid as anchorman! The Blaine Train Occupies AFR [News 25 WEHT] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GameStop's 'Midnight Warfare' Events in NYC & LA Posted: 04 Nov 2011 10:45 AM PDT Midnight Warfare sounds like a great spoof porn. GameStop will host special launch events for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in New York and Los Angeles. Attendees will have the chance to play the game before the midnight launch on November 8, and members of the MW3 development team will be in attendance to hang out and meet fans. Like free stuff? T-shirts will be given away to the first 100 attendees. The New York location will also feature the new COD:MW3 Jeep, and Jeep-related giveaways will take place. Are you going to a launch event?
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| Live show: A.D.D. Friday on Mash Tactics Posted: 04 Nov 2011 10:30 AM PDT Today, Mash Tactics is playing whatever they feel like. The end of the week is what we affectionately call "A.D.D. Fridays." We take suggestions on what to play, then we play along with the people watching at home. Mash Tactics airs Monday through Friday at 4pm Pacific. Watch Jon Carnage and Wesley Ruscher let loose with off-the-wall humor and discuss the issues of the day in the live chat on Destructoid's Twitch.tv channel. Also, there are videogames being played. Join us for your chance to win prizes, talk to industry guests, and witness all of the glorious antics. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| F*** It, The DTOID Show Will Do it Live Posted: 04 Nov 2011 10:25 AM PDT UPDATE: Thanks for tuning in, everyone! The recorded show will be up soon. Hey guys! Just a reminder that The Destructoid Show will be recording LIVE today, at 3:30 PM Pacific, 6:30 PM Eastern. Uh. -7:00 GMT. It's in like two and a half hours. Telling time is hard on the internet. I think today'll be a good show. In addition to video game news, I'm hungover because I was playing uDraw Pictionary for charity last night and Nick Chester (RIP) sent us a copy of Dance Central 2. Also, we're ordering pizza because we just broke 50k subscribers on YouTube. Basically, there's a really good chance something will go hilariously wrong. This will be happening on The YouTubes. We'll bump this post when we go live, but just so you know. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Review: Dungeon Siege III: Treasures of the Sun Posted: 04 Nov 2011 10:00 AM PDT For all its faults, Dungeon Siege III was something that I immensely enjoyed to button-mash my way through on my own. The camera annoyances found in co-op were not really an issue while playing solo, although the AI's tendency to just leave you for dead more than made up for it. Treasures of the Sun, the first big DLC expansion, doesn't just add a good amount of new content to the hack & slash-a-ton, but also gives players a number of new tools to make their lives a lot easier on the whole. Dungeon Siege III: Treasure of the Sun (PC, Xbox 360 [Reviewed], PS3) Given that Dungeon Siege III more or less made you run a linear line from locale to locale, Treasures of the Sun fits right in with its new Aranoi Desert environment. If you have already finished the game before, you can just load up the Endgame autosave and get to Aranoi from a new path on the Causeway Hub that would normally lead you to the Chapterhouse and the final battle. If you haven't finished it, you'll be able to access it via the same Causeway Hub after you regain control of the Grand Chapterhouse and complete the Spire levels. You won't be able to just jump into the DLC from the start of the game and for good reason; it can be damn hard! The last time I played Dungeon Siege III was sometime in July and of course I had completely forgotten Reinhart's (my main) 3x3 array of abilities. Since the game was also still set on Hardcore from the campaign playthrough, suffice it to say that I died horrible at the hands of the most meager of skeletons that you first encounter on the Aranoi wasteland. After familiarizing yourself with the controls and remembering how to play Dungeon Siege III, though, it quickly becomes second nature again. As DLC goes, Treasures of the Sun will give you plenty of meat to dive into. There's a good five hours or more worth of sieging dungeons in here -- at least if you listen to the conversations -- and as Dungeon Siege III goes it's actually rather good. The Aranoi Desert environment itself can be compared to one of the larger campaign areas in terms of scope, with plenty of sidequests, cave systems, temples and dungeons to crawl through. The main game may not be one that is remembered fondly because of its story, but Treasures of the Sun offers a surprisingly much better story than you'd expect. Now that the goal is no longer to just go through the motions to gather allies against Jeyne Kassinder, there's somewhat of a lull in the storyline to allow you to explore other parts of the Dungeon Siege universe. In this case, it sheds some more light on the background of the Azunai religion and a lost temple where former Azunites have turned to heresy. Some twists should offer some good fun for Dungeon Siege fans and there is plenty of lore to go around and to help you delve into the wider universe. Compared to the regular game with its snippets of unrelated information here and there, I found it refreshing to read so much lore focused on the single topic of the Agallan giants' adoption of the Azunite religion, what happened to Ehb's patron saint Hiram, and the subsequent heresy that has tainted Aranoi. Of course, if you ignore all of that there's still some plenty of the regular hack & slash experience to go around. In Aranoi you'll come across three shrines that will each unlock a new ultimate ability. These powers will consume all your power orbs and the more orbs you have the stronger the effect will be. Hathra'unok's Embrace gives you an instant super heal, Xeria's Wrath gives you a large area-of-effect damage explosion, and Elisheva's Shield offers a very nice barrier for those harder fights. The caveat is that you can only wield one of these super powers at the same time, although you can swap them around at the Aranoi shrines as long as you have unlocked them. However, these powers are activated by clicking and holding the thumbsticks, which can lead to some frustration. Since clicking the right thumbstick also changes the camera perspective on the controller, you'll find yourself changing the camera to its useless up-close position instead of giving you an instant heal when you are down to double digits of health. Because you can already heal yourself with every character anyway and most characters have some sort of protection ability as well, the area-of-attack ultimate is the one you'll want. Once fully powered by the five power orbs you can now wield, it can even wipe the floor with the majority of a boss form's health. By the time you're in Aranoi, your character should be powerful enough to fill these power orbs quickly enough, so as long as you remember to use the ultimate ability it will make playing through the game on Hardcore a lot less frustrating in the later stages. Aranoi also provides you with a special shrine to respec all of your character's abilities and talents for 20,000 gold -- easily gathered within an hour -- which is an option that should've been in the main game in the first place, but it's still nice to have. The final big addition Treasures of the Sun offers is Essences. An Essence is an item (it doesn't take up a slot in the inventory) that you can use to enchant any piece of equipment with one of five statistics; Chaos: Vampire (drain life), Doom (extra damage with critical hits), Retribution (counter damage), Stagger (stun on attack), and Warding (stun on being attacked). Larger foes will sometimes drop an Essence, but you can also randomly gain one by transmuting an expensive piece of equipment that contains one of these five statistics. You can't overpower an item too much, as you can't enchant an item with a new Essence if that item already has six different kinds of other stats, but your main weapon will still benefit a lot from consistently adding the same types of Essences. However, adding an Essence will bankrupt you in no time due to the high cost of enchanting, so it's not likely to break the game in the areas before the DLC. I did encounter Essence drops in the final stage of the regular game, so it seems this system permeates all of Dungeon Siege III as long as you own the DLC. This new Essence system makes it a bit more interesting to go through the entire game with a new character, and the option to respec when you reach Aranoi means you no longer have to be afraid you'll mess up your build for the end of the game. If you had trouble with the final boss, a side trip to Aranoi will provide you with enough XP to gain a few levels, with Level 35 now being the new level cap. Some new and super powerful legendary weapons you can find for each of your four characters are also certain to help you out in the late game -- especially if you enchant them with all your Essences. If you didn't care much for Dungeon Siege III in the first place, Treasures of the Sun is not going to change your mind. It doesn't offer anything mind-blowing that magically turns Dungeon Siege III into a masterpiece. But if you thought it was great or even just alright game, this DLC offers a pretty neat package with additional features and some new powers to toy with. The story is far more interesting than anything Dungeon Siege III had to offer, even if most of it is easily overlooked in favor of just mashing those buttons. One choice at the end of the game hints at a larger impact beyond the storyline of Dungeon Siege III, which makes you wonder if Obsidian has plans for a future title that will be affected by this choice. Treasures of the Sun is definitely one for the fans and it offers plenty of new content with its new locale, while simultaneously giving you a new reason to play through the full game again. If Dungeon Siege III was not quite Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance but similar enough for you to enjoy, then Treasures of the Sun is best compared to Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast; it's a well-shaped and mostly unrelated side-story that offers more of the same fun in a slightly tighter jacket. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This weekend on TwitchTV: Also Binding of Isaac Posted: 04 Nov 2011 09:45 AM PDT Destructoid's Twitch.tv channel is committed to bringing lots of great gaming-related entertainment even during the weekends. From playing games on the stream, to discussing them in a talk show format, we bring a wide range of entertainment with that unique Dtoid flavor. On Halloween our Twitch TV channel finally surpassed 10,000 followers! In celebration, I have vowed to do something on Also, Talks that is oft requested: I'm going to play a videogame. I'll be streaming myself playing The Binding of Isaac for the duration of the show. Saturday Morning Hangover with Conrad Zimmerman and Jordan Devore airs from 10:00am to 12:00pm Pacific. Come watch as they play the latest Xbox Live Indie Games demos for your enjoyment, and revel in the beauty of Conrad's mustache! Chill with Phil is a relaxed gaming show hosted by community member, and video game connoisseur, Philanthr0py. This Saturday at 4:00pm Pacific, Phil is picking up some 5.56ers and Pineapples and continuing his road to MGS: HD Collection with the original Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation. 321Go Cast is Destructoid's only live show/podcast hybrid airing on Sunday, from 2:00-4:00pm Pacific starring JohnnyViral, Jesse Cortez, Pangloss, and Ryu89. The crew is sure to be arguing over videogames, Doctor Who, and the gaming news of the day. Destructoid's live community talk show, Also, Talks, starring Bill Zoeker and Johnnyluchador is committed to bringing interesting conversations about videogames, Destructoid, and random nonsense on Sunday at 4:00pm Pacific. This week, I will be playing Team Meat's Binding of Isaac. People have regularly asked, "Why don't you play games on this show?" To which I have always replied, "It's a talk show!" Well now I'm breaking my oath in honor of our 10,000 followers. Catch these shows and more on Twitch.tv/destructoid! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Devs say PS3 has the performance advantage over Xbox 360 Posted: 04 Nov 2011 09:30 AM PDT You know how it goes before systems are released. We always look at the technical specifications and figure out which one is more powerful so we can argue on the internet armed with knowledge. By now we know that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are pretty close to each other in number crunching power, but devs say at this stage of this console generation the PS3 comes out just a bit ahead. Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi says that the PS3 wins out because it came out a year after the Xbox 360. "PS3 came out a year later than the X360. Because of its later arrival, I would say that the PS3 has a slight advantage in performance," he told Industry Gamers. Square Enix's Worldwide Technical Director, Julien Merceron, thinks the PS3 has more juice, but says that developers need to push to get top results. "Some consumers could have gotten the feeling in 2006/2007 that – graphically – Xbox 360 games were more advanced, but today it is quite different in fact!" "Personally, I’d say that – on PS3 – I believe there are some major improvements that can still be done, taking advantage of parallelisation and using more of the CPU for graphics tasks. At the end of current home Console life cycle, it is very possible consumers might get the feeling PS3 is slightly ahead of Xbox 360 in terms of graphics, but it will only happen if developers dedicate time to really push things on PS3!" Both Merceron and Hayashi were part of a roundtable on console horsepower. It's a good read. In it Hayashi talks about how he believes that things like software updates and muti-core processors are prolonging the life of current consoles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Three PC builds under $1000 to make Skyrim look its best Posted: 04 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PDT With The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim arriving in stores November 11, is your computer ready to play it? In case you haven't heard, here are the system specifications: Recommended Specs
Minimum Specs
To be honest, I was a little shocked at how low the requirements were considering the game is supposed to look like this: However, if your computer isn't up to snuff to play Skyrim, here are our recommendations:
Intel Core i3-550 3.33GHz Dual-core I decided to go with the i3-550 because it's a pretty decent blend of price and performance. Although it's a dual core, this processor does have hyper-threading so it is capable of running four simultaneous threads and considering the price, that's good enough for me. ASRock H55M-LE Micro ATX LGA1156 Motherboard First off, before everyone starts ripping me apart for picking an LGA1156 socket, I know it's no longer being made. However, it's because it's no longer being made that the CPU and motherboard are cheap and therefore are okay in my book because they're still perfectly good products. I picked this motherboard because it can hold reasonable amounts of RAM and is therefore easily upgradeable to higher RAM in two modules (I suggest not going over 8GB, you most likely won't need any more than that). It has ten USB 2.0 ports, and four SATA II (3GB/s) ports and supports all those fun Intel technologies that boost performance. Patriot G Series 4GB (2 x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz Patriot is a pretty respected brand, and generally makes some okay RAM. I chose to go with the 1600MHz speed because it was the same price as 1333MHz and gives you the option to overclock in order to speed things up a little (albeit a very small amount). Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200RPM I put N/A for the price because prices currently aren't accurate due to the recent floods in Thailand. If you can wait, I highly suggest waiting until prices fall to buy a hard drive, as they are inflated around 50%. For the price calculation above, I used the base price of $60 as that's what the price hovered around before the floods. That, however, does not change my recommendation. Western Digital has a reputation of putting out high-quality drives, and the Caviar Black is the cream of the crop (not counting the Raptor). It's highly reliable and has gaming grade RPM (7200+). Even if you do get the bad drive of the bunch, WD has an exemplary RMA program. EVGA GeForce GT 430 1024MB Although the minimum specs don't require a card this good, I believe that you won't be able to run Skyrim on such a low card, even if it is on the lowest setting. However, for twenty dollars more, you can get six times more stream processors, which I believe is a worthwhile investment. The Kitchen Sink I picked the case because it was a cheap case that I didn't think looked bad and was made by a reputable company. The power supply is made by Antec, which is yet again a good company. If you'd like to play it on the safe side, you can upgrade to a higher wattage, but you should be okay with the 550W. While you are able to make it by with a 32-bit operating system with four gigs of RAM, I decided to go with 64-bit because it costs the same and gives you the ability to upgrade your RAM if you so desire.
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Built on the Sandy bridge architecture, the i5-2500K is an excellent CPU loved by many. Just as the i3-550 I recommended in the minimum settings, the i5-2500K also has hyper-threading, which allows for eight simultaneous threads. Combined with a 3.33GHz base clock, you can't go wrong with the i5-2500K whether or not you intend to overclock it. Cooler Master 212 Plus 120mm CPU Cooler This is a piece that may or may not be needed in your system based on what you intend to do with it. Technically, you don't really need one if you don't intend to overclock (the stock fan will do just fine in that case), however I personally prefer to get a CPU cooler either way. I found the Cooler Master to be quieter than the stock fan as well as cooling things down a bit. If you do intend on overclocking though, I highly recommend getting a non-stock CPU cooler. MSI Intel P67 ATX DDR3 LGA1155 Motherboard I've seen some pretty good stuff made by MSI and this is no exception. Supporting a maximum of 32GB of RAM, four SATA II (3GB/s) ports, two SATA III (6GB/s) ports, and 14 USB 2.0 ports, this board offers plenty of power and flexibility for a relatively low price. The only gripe I have about this board is that it doesn't have a second PCIe 2.0 16x slot, so it doesn't offer SLI support in the case that you wanted to upgrade sometime along the road. Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz RAM Out of all the brands, I find that Corsair makes some of the highest-quality memory out there, and I especially like the Vengeance. When I installed it into my past computers, I had no problems at all. It was more or less a plug and play thing on top of being very fast to boot. The tall heat sinks were slightly annoying, as they almost ran into my CPU heatsink. Despite that, the Vengeance is excellent RAM and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for high-quality memory. Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200RPM I decided to keep the same hard drive because it's cheap and good. If you wish, of course, you can upgrade to higher capacities. Another option is going with the SATA III, 64MB Cache (Though 64MB cache is only offered on 750GB and up drives); I find that the drive isn't fast enough to take advantage of SATA III capabilities and still runs to full capacity on SATA II. EVGA GeForce GTX 460SE 1GB GDDR5 "The recommended specs let you play on High, not on Ultra, you'll want a beefier rig for that." -- Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP for PR and Marketing. With this in mind, I decided to go for the Ultra settings even though the recommended settings say you'll only need a GTX 260 to play on High because getting the GTX 460 will also allow you to play other recent games on higher settings, such as Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In general, I think it's better to go above the GTX 260 as it's quickly becoming an obsolete card. If you would like to shave about $50 off, go ahead and get the GTX 260. Though, I don't recommend cutting performance from the graphics card if you intend to game on it. If anything, I would downgrade to the i3-550 if you're on a tight budget. Otherwise, I believe it's a worthwhile investment on your part. On the other hand, if you're looking to upgrade to a more powerful card, I suggest the GTX 560 ($189.99), which is the next generation up from the GTX 460 for only $40 more. The Kitchen Sink I used the same components in the minimum specs build because they're cheap while at the same time being quality products. Adding more expensive components would not necessarily increase gaming performance. You could upgrade the power supply if you wanted, but you should be fine with the 550W.
For all you AMD lovers out there, here's a build for you. I switched out the CPU, motherboard, and video card from the other recommended build, so I'll just talk about those for the sake of repetition. In case you aren't knowledgeable about the difference between Intel/NVIDIA and AMD, they're just different brands who have different business tactics. Although Intel and NVIDIA aren't the same company, they operate somewhat similarly in that they have the reputation of having excellent (some may argue superior) products and therefore typically charge higher prices. AMD, on the other hand, has tried to make cheaper chips and produce products that have a higher price efficiency (more bang for your buck). Although the gap is slowly closing between the two, a good rule of thumb is that Intel/NVIDIA has more power in their products for a higher price while AMD has less powerful (yet still good) products for a lower price. While I don't mean to start another NVIDIA vs. AMD argument, gamers who are going for the most powerful rig despite the price go with NVIDIA while many budget gamers who still want a good rig tend to side with AMD. I know there are exceptions to every rule -- I'm just trying to show that there are multiple options to consider. AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black 3.2GHz Quad-Core This is one of my favorite CPUs, even including the i5-2500K. Comparing the low price to the power you get is pretty awesome, if I may say so myself. The 955 is very fast, reliable, and offers enough power to play any game in release. It does come with a couple setbacks though; it uses 125W of power over the i5-2500K's modest 95W. In addition to this, the 955 lacks Intel technologies such as hyper-threading and turbo boost, but in comparison to the price, it might be worth it. ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 Motherboard Out of the three motherboards we've looked at today, this one takes the cake. This board boasts four memory slots (though only 16GB max), two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, six SATA III (6GB/s) slots, and two USB 3.0 ports. What really makes this board for me is the two PCIe slots, which means you it is Crossfire ready (meaning you can use two video cards to power your system instead of one, it's the AMD version of SLI). It's a little pricier than the motherboards we looked at before, but the lower price of the CPU balance it out a bit. Sapphire HD 6850 PCIE Video Card So the Radeon HD 6850 is actually a better card than the GTX 460 in that it's an entire generation ahead. Probably a fairer comparison to the 6850 would be the GTX 560, which I mentioned earlier in the article. In case any of you are keeping track, the 6850 is $40 cheaper than the 560 and offers similar benchmarks. Bottom Line Both recommended builds have their high points and their low points and all factors should be taken into consideration when looking into building a computer. My recommendations are, of course, my opinion and other options may be better for you personally based on what you intend to do with the computer. However, all in all, Skyrim is shaping up to be an incredible game, and it turns out you don't need an incredible computer to play it. Let me rehash that because of floods in Thailand, hard drive prices are much higher than usual, and will cost you much more to buy right now. I would suggest waiting if you can until the prices settle down. The normal price for the 500GB WD Black hovers around $60. Also, I realized that I may have made it sound like you can't use an NVIDIA card on an AMD motherboard, which you can. So, you can use a single NVIDIA card on an AMD board and an AMD card on an Intel board. Just be sure to check if your motherboard supports SLI or Crossfire, as it depends on the specs of the board. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The LEGO Universe ends January 31st Posted: 04 Nov 2011 09:00 AM PDT One of the more interesting MMO experiments is about to see its end. LEGO Universe, the family-friendly online free-to-play game featuring everybody's favorite Danish building block, will be shutting down its servers at the end of January after a little over a year of operation. LEGO Universe claims almost 2 million players among its ranks but, according to LEGO Universe VP Jesper Vilstrup, was unable to, "build a satisfactory revenue model," by failing to convert enough of those players to paying subscribers. Bummer. I thought it was a pretty neat game but, then again, I didn't cough up my credit card info either. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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