New Games |
- The Master Chief is way too full of himself
- Watch Mario perform 12 minutes of RPG musical covers
- Get free Microsoft Points for playing Halo 4 multiplayer
- Steam Linux beta begins for select testers
- Injustice's controller setup gets detailed
- New rickonami HD intro is literally 'out of this world'
- Review: Chaos on Deponia
- Here's how to find all the Terminals in Halo 4
- Microsoft reportedly planning 7" Xbox Surface tablet
- Assassin's Creed III sold over 3.5M copies in first week
- Live show: Halo 4 with LT3
- Borderlands 2 security patch now released on Xbox 360
- Review: LittleBigPlanet Karting
- Elite returns with new Kickstarter for Elite: Dangerous
- Dev: Top PCs more powerful than next-gen consoles
- Halo 4 will NOT be issuing special XBL bans for sexism
| The Master Chief is way too full of himself Posted: 06 Nov 2012 03:00 PM PST
Hey Master Chief, Halo 4 is great and all but you're acting like a dick here. Calm down dude, it's just a videogame. |
| Watch Mario perform 12 minutes of RPG musical covers Posted: 06 Nov 2012 02:00 PM PST
The Mini Mario Orchestra took a bunch of musical numbers from a variety of role-playing games and strung it all together to create the "Epic RPG Medley." It's not just J-RPGs, as there are some songs from Skyrim and Mass Effect in here as well. There's a bunch of other videogame covers over on his YouTube channel worth checking out while you're at it. |
| Get free Microsoft Points for playing Halo 4 multiplayer Posted: 06 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PST The latest offer to Xbox Live Rewards members will get them free Microsoft Points just for playing Halo 4's multiplayer. If you play over 140 hours of multiplayer, you'll be given 600 MS Points. Over 70 hours will earn you 300 MS Points, and over 35 hours will get you 100 MS Points. Spending over 3000 MS Points on Halo content in the Marketplace will get you 200 points back, and spending 1500 points will get you 100 points back. You'll also be given back 800 MS Points if you spend over 3000 points and play over 35 hours of multiplayer combined. This offer is good until November 30, and you have to sign up for the Reward service to make it count. I won't be spending points on the Marketplace, but I'm all for the multiplayer side of this. I mean, I'm going to be playing countless hours of the multiplayer as it is, so it's cool that I'm going to be getting free money out of it. [Thanks, N7!] |
| Steam Linux beta begins for select testers Posted: 06 Nov 2012 12:30 PM PST The beta for the Linux version of Steam, which supports around two dozen titles including Team Fortress 2 and Serious Sam 3: BFE, is now live for the first wave of testers. According to Valve's Frank Crockett, "An overwhelming majority of beta applicants have reported they're running the Ubuntu distro of Linux" and the team will prioritize development of additional popular distributions based on user feedback. If you're dying to get access, know that this client will open up to more participants in the future, ultimately becoming available for everyone on Steam when it's ready. The timing for Valve's support of the platform is smart given where Windows 8 looks to be heading. |
| Injustice's controller setup gets detailed Posted: 06 Nov 2012 12:00 PM PST
The team behind Injustice released a new developer diary detailing all the new tech that they're bringing to their fighting game engine. The controls were also elaborated on, revealing that the block button is gone. Instead you just now hold the stick back to block. Injustice: Gods Among Us will be out April 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U. |
| New rickonami HD intro is literally 'out of this world' Posted: 06 Nov 2012 11:30 AM PST
Riccardo "rickonami" Faidutti has been gradually stepping up his skills. The Mega Man 2 intro was decent if a little too over-produced, and the Star Fox intro was glorious. His other videos are wonderful, especially for small fan-made projects done in his spare time. But this... This is a full-on recreation / extension of the opening movie of Out of This World (Another World for my Euro-bros) that blends Rick's trademark CGI style with live-action acting. At seven minutes in length excluding credits, it's his most ambitious video to date, requiring three months of work. Enjoy! ANOTHER WORLD / OUT OF THIS WORLD - INTRO REMAKE - HD [YouTube] |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST Deponia ended right when things were getting good, and so that’s where Chaos on Deponia begins. Despite the first reaching the West in January -- or August, really, for us Steam-lovin’ folks -- a full, bona fide sequel is already upon us.
The true opening of CoD (the non-shooting-dudes CoD) is one of the most knee-slappingly funny and creative intros I’ve seen in an adventure game. It brilliantly plays upon the tropes of the genre and established fiction of Deponia. Rufus is brought into the home of an elderly couple, who bicker and talk about Rufus’ as the player kills their pet, breaks their plumbing, and burns their house down. If only all of CoD’s puzzles were so humorous and self-contained.
If the opening city hub of Deponia made you fall to your knees, you’re going to faint when you enter CoD’s main city that is double, if not triple, in size. CoD is not for the novice adventurer, since there are always so many locations, people, and items to factor into a puzzle. This is not the game’s problem. Its problem is that it frequently does a poor job in directing the player and subtly dropping hints. Perhaps something is lost in translation from the game’s original German, but I often felt lost and frustrated. Grim Fandango has a similar structure but I always thought it was my fault upon discovering a solution. I either wasn’t paying attention or listening to dialogue close enough. This is rarely the case in CoD and considering the game’s large world, that’s unfortunate.
Where CoD fails as a sequel, it succeeds with flying colors as a stand-alone, comedic adventure. Curb your expectations and you’ll discover a great cast of characters that are much better written and voiced than anything else Daedalic has put out. From Rufus’ hard-to-please father to the deluded renegade leader, CoD strives on the strengths of its outlandish characters and gorgeous world. As unlikely as it sounds, CoD manages to look even better than the first title. Secret of Monkey Island-style close-up dialogue scenes add some much needed variety and personality to presentation, and the large city hub is fantastic, full of color and detail. The backdrops still lack animation, though.
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| Here's how to find all the Terminals in Halo 4 Posted: 06 Nov 2012 10:30 AM PST
Like the past few Halo games, Halo 4 has several Terminals hidden throughout the campaign of the game. Finding these Terminals will unlock extra video content that can be viewed through the new and improved Halo Waypoint. I found three on my own during my playthrough, and even then I was looking as hard as possible to find them all. Well the guys at Gamefront managed to find them, and have created the above video showing you exactly how to find them all. And as it turns out, I wasn't looking hard enough apparently. Also spoilers, obviously. Or, if you're like me, you can just watch all the videos from the Terminals pieced together below. The first part of the video won't spoil anything really, as it's just setting up how the Covenant find Requiem. The rest of the clips should definitely be avoided if you're a fan of Halo lore and haven't beaten Halo 4 yet.
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| Microsoft reportedly planning 7" Xbox Surface tablet Posted: 06 Nov 2012 10:15 AM PST Multiple sources have confirmed to The Verge that hardware planning for a 7-inch Xbox Surface tablet is now happening at Microsoft. The device is said to run a custom Windows kernel as opposed to a full version of the operating system and focus on gaming. The publication says that the Xbox Surface is likely to include a custom ARM processor and high-bandwidth RAM, noting that initial specifications for the device that leaked out earlier were accurate. If executed well, this could be an interesting addition to the Surface platform, but I can't fight the feeling that it will inevitably be too little, too late. We'll have to wait and see once final specs and a price point are given, assuming this thing comes to fruition in the first place. What would you even be looking for in something like this? Xbox Surface: Microsoft's 7-inch gaming tablet [The Verge] |
| Assassin's Creed III sold over 3.5M copies in first week Posted: 06 Nov 2012 10:00 AM PST In news that probably wouldn't surprise anyone, Ubisoft estimated in their 2012-13 financial fiscal report that Assassin's Creed III sold well over 3.5 million copies in only its first week of hitting shelves. To put things in perspective, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies in its first 24 hours last year. We're not talking anywhere near those kind of numbers, but this is still extremely impressive for a game that isn't Call of Duty, so that's pretty cool. The report also states that this is double the sales from what Revelations saw last year in the same time frame. Personally, I'm more interested to hear how Assassin's Creed: Liberation fared launching on the same day as its console brother, but sadly there's no word on that front. Hopefully people are picking it up, because I'd love to see more support for the Vita from developers and consumers alike (plus, Liberation is really good!). In any case, it looks like we're going to be seeing a lot more Assassin's Creed from here on out. As if there were ever any doubt. Assassin's Creed 3 first-week sales exceed 3.5 million copies, Ubisoft says [Polygon] |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2012 09:30 AM PST [Mash Tactics airs Monday through Friday at 4p.m. Pacific on Dtoid.TV. Watch King Foom play a variety of games, each day with its own theme. With a heavy focus on community and viewer interaction, you can be as much a part of the show as anything else.] So, I don't know if you've heard, but some little game called Halo 4 came out today, and it seems to be gathering a bit of a buzz in the gaming scene. Interesting, I suppose I'll check it out and see what all the hubbub is about. Lame jokes aside, get ready for an amazing evening on Mash Tactics, as we dive into the latest installment of this legendary franchise. If just playing Halo 4 wasn't enough, wait, there's more! Tonight, we'll be hanging out with one of the lovely ladies from pro-gaming clan LT3, Kelly Kelley aka Mrs.Violence. She's kind of amazing at first-person shooters, and will hopefully be on my team at all times as we try and stomp the competition. Come watch me get carried, or join in on the action, only at Dtoid.TV! QotD: Are you hyped about Halo 4, or could you care less? |
| Borderlands 2 security patch now released on Xbox 360 Posted: 06 Nov 2012 09:15 AM PST Gearbox Software has issued a patch to the Xbox 360 version of Borderlands 2 today which addresses an issue caused by players who had been using third-party software to modify elements of the game. Borderlands 2 players on Xbox 360 were encouraged late last month to play in private games with friends to protect them from users of the software. So, good news, you're now free to enjoy Pandora in the company of total strangers (likely yelling obscenities) and know that your game data is probably safe. Happy day! Xbox 360 Update Information [Gearbox Software Support] |
| Review: LittleBigPlanet Karting Posted: 06 Nov 2012 09:00 AM PST When LittleBigPlanet Karting was announced, the first thing I felt was pity. Pity for ModNation Racers, the build-everything karting title that Sony presented under the same "Play Create Share" banner as Media Molecule's critically acclaimed series. An LBP kart racer renders ModNation obsolete. That said, LBP itself may be deserving of some sympathy, considering it's launched on the same day as Halo 4 and hasn't had a shred of marketing weight put behind it. If you're releasing alongside one of 2012's biggest games, you could at least have had more than a day-of-launch trailer. As it is, many folks have been surprised the game is even out already. If Sony was looking for a one-two punch that knocked both of its karting properties out of the race, it's done a bang-up job. Still, neither of them are really worth missing. Easy come, easy go.
LittleBigPlanet Karting (PlayStation 3) LittleBigPlanet Karting does for the kart racing genre what LittleBigPlanet did for the platforming genre, and by that I mean it does what ModNation Racers was already doing for the kart racing genre. I promise I won't keep going on about that, but it truly boggles the mind how completely useless Sony has made either one of these two titles. It doesn't help that LBP Karting is, more or less, exactly like the aforementioned "rival" title (likely due to United Front working on both games). The general idea is that, like with LittleBigPlanet, players can create their own levels to share and play online. Using all manner of terrain deformation tools, pre-set objects, and customizable materials, players can craft some truly impressive tracks using the exact kind of user-friendly interface seen in mainstay LittleBigPlanet titles. This time around, instead of creating 2D platform levels, players lay out tracks built from all kinds of material by "driving" a paint roller across the ground. The roller can be raised or lowered to create tracks of varying heights, and branching routes can be added for shortcuts and hidden paths. Most of the tools found in LittleBigPlanet transfer over quite well to the karting spin-off. Almost anything can be tweaked, from the color of the sky to the behavior of CPU-controlled racers. Speech bubbles, animated obstacles, dangerous terrain, and prizes can all be added, to the point where the only real appreciable difference between LBP and Karting is the 3D perspective. This leads for an incredibly intuitive crafting experience that, once players get to grips with the way track-building works, will have them bolting together all manner of quirky race levels in no time at all.
Unlike ModNation, there is not a huge amount of scope when it comes to making karts and racers themselves. Your Sackboy is still a pre-made doll upon which to hang costume pieces, while the karts lack the minute level of customizable details found in Sony's earlier karting property, and fail to appear quite so personalized due to LBP's "improvised" aesthetic. Nevertheless, the designs are still rather charming, and unlocking new body parts for the vehicles remains a compelling little incentive. The building aspect of LittleBigPlanet is as entertaining as usual, but the racing itself doesn't match such levels of satisfaction. It holds its own as a fairly decent karting experience, but it chooses to stop at merely being decent, refusing to do anything new or exciting on its own and instead relying on the customization aspect as a sole draw. In a way, this is a problem shared by the regular LittleBigPlanet games -- just as LittleBigPlanet is an exceptional way of crafting unremarkable platformers, so too is Karting an exceptional way of crafting unremarkable racers. All the obligatory features are in place -- karts can drift for speed boosts, perform spinning tricks in mid-air, and collect weapons to blast the competition. As with ModNation Racers, Karting goes overboard with the luck-based power-ups, using projectiles that are completely unavoidable unless you waste your own weapon to diffuse incoming attacks, and a multitude of powers that can shunt you from first to last place without skill ever being a factor. This makes it useful as a casual party game, but renders the solo story chapters more aggravating than amusing.
As well as straightforward races, there are Mario Kart-style battle arenas where players have to kill each other as much as possible, solo checkpoint races, and capture-and-hold objectives where players need to hold onto a specific item for as long as possible. The story mode also provides a smattering of mini-games and even boss fights, where mines or guns are used to take out weak points on huge, monstrous creations. One thing I appreciate is how traditional elements from the series have been incorporated stylistically into the gameplay. For instance, weapon power-ups are appropriated Weaponators, and when you die, a familiar spawn point opens up on the track to get your racer back into play. The grappling hook is used to swing across wide chasms, prize bubbles can be collected to unlock new items, and many weapons are taken directly from the various obstacles found across the LBP series. Karting succeeds impressively at creating a title that feels right at home in the LittleBigPlanet universe. Nevertheless, there's no escaping the fact that, like so many kart racers released over the last few years, LittleBigPlanet Karting is unadventurous, traditional to a fault, and too damn slow. Yet again, it's shameful to note that a budget title, Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine, has still done more to energize the genre than any of the more prominent titles. Make no mistake, Johnson was sorely lacking in the quality department, but at least it tried. LBP Karting is yet another racer that simply hasn't put any effort into making kart racers exciting again. It's solid, it's functional, but it's not exhilarating in any way.
The lack of thrill is compounded by the fact that LBP's famously floaty physics are preserved unapologetically and used throughout the racing experience. Cars feel unwieldy and lacking in traction, and jumping is an oddly slow affair. It's not enough to be a massive problem, but the physics are just loose enough to give the whole game a strange, waxy feeling. Online play makes things a bit more interesting, though only marginally so. The multiplayer aspect runs smoothly, and a cool voting system offers up three stages pulled up at random for players to choose. The randomized aspect makes the next race a consistent surprise, but it can offer up poorly designed courses just as often as good ones, and can even change the controls without warning the players. Still, the game is already filling up with user-created courses, running the gamut between insipid and inventive. Time will tell if there are enough players to keep the game ticking, but right now there seems to be a healthy batch of offerings to choose from, and folks are quickly finding ways to put a unique spin on things. One user has managed to craft a water course, complete with boats. The water physics don't react to the boats, making the whole level look odd, but it's a promising start. For those that do manage to find the gameplay aspect compelling, there's a solid amount of content to check out.
LittleBigPlanet Karting may be worth checking out for fans of the series, but experienced kart lovers can happily skip it. While the creation mode is a potentially engrossing concept, it's not really anything that hasn't already been done, and the racing itself is almost antediluvian in nature. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, and can even manage to be quite fun in the right environment, but it's altogether a fairly meaningless release that seems to exist just to ensure Sony has something out in time for the holiday season that isn't All-Stars. I felt sorry for ModNation Racers when LBP Karting was released, but now I just kind of feel bad for both of them. |
| Elite returns with new Kickstarter for Elite: Dangerous Posted: 06 Nov 2012 08:45 AM PST Before Star Citizen was announced, I had hoped that a developer would use Kickstarter to launch a space-sim game just like Elite. Well someone up above was listening as Elite creator David Braben has launched a Kickstarter for his successor to Elite entitled Elite: Dangerous. Before your Kickstarter cynicism kicks in, Braben says on their campaign page that the game has suffered from a number of false starts and that using Kickstarter can reduce the budget needed for it to be made. But I wonder if there's enough room for two big space sims in the near future? I'm of two minds about this; on the positive side, I'd love another Elite game (hell, I even played the crap out of the NES version) and if this is the only way of seeing this happen is a Kickstarter, so be it. On the negative side, am I blinded by my childhood nostalgia? Are no publishers seeing the trends in PC gaming and not realizing that a well made space sim would be a good idea? |
| Dev: Top PCs more powerful than next-gen consoles Posted: 06 Nov 2012 08:30 AM PST Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts has said that his new game simply couldn't be handled by a PS3 or Xbox 360, and that even the next home console generation would struggle to run it. According to Roberts, anything we'll see from the next generation can already be done on high-end PCs. "What I was showing [with Star Citizen] you can't do on a current generation console," he told Ars Technica. "You can do most of it on a next generation console, but I can promise you a top-end PC now is already more powerful than what a next generation console is going to be. "You can't do that much with 512MB [of console RAM], so that constrains a lot of your game design. If I'm building a PC game, I'm going 'yeah, you need 4GB on your machine.' Of course you're not going to get all 4GB because Windows is a hungry beast, but you're getting a lot more than 512MB so it kinds of open up what you can do, what you can fit in memory at the same time, and it changes your level of ambition." Certainly no denying that the PC will be more than capable of retaining its edge over home consoles. Just a shame that publishers treat the market like a dumping ground, and will likely continue to do so well into the next iteration of systems. |
| Halo 4 will NOT be issuing special XBL bans for sexism Posted: 06 Nov 2012 08:15 AM PST Last week, Halo 4 was at the center of a brouhaha with word that sexist behavior in Halo 4 online play would net the user a lifetime ban. While some folks applauded the measure, others asked why homophobic and racist activity wasn't due the same level of punishment. Others declared that free speech was being infringed upon -- not that free speech laws actually protect sexists, racists, and homophobes from XBL bans. In any case, we spoke with Microsoft to shed light on these questions, and were informed instead that Xbox Live's banning policy had, in fact, not changed, and certainly wasn't being upgraded or altered for Halo 4. "While Xbox Live indeed does not condone harassment of any kind, account and console bans are issued based on a robust complaint and evidence-based system," said a spokesperson. "There is no difference in the Xbox Live Terms of Use and Code of Conduct for Halo 4." In a clarifying phone call, I was informed that sexism is not treated with lesser tolerance than racism, homophobia, or any other type of abuse, and that Microsoft takes each case as it comes. All pricks are treated equally, in other words -- my words, not theirs exactly. So there you go. Your sexual harassment will be considered with just as much gravitas as your decision to insult somebody's racial background. That's what we're all striving for, isn't it? Everybody just being bigots together, in perfect harmony! Or something like that, anyway. |
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