New Games |
- Quadrilateral Cowboy arms you with programming
- Raiden will steal boss weapons in Metal Gear Revengeance
- The Witcher 3 Announced, Day Z Gameplay & The Last Of Us
- Paradox talks quality: Expect fewer and better titles
- E3 to hold a college game competition
- Dead Space 3 exploit already found for infinite items
- Capcom asks for your favorite Street Fighter characters
- Redbox Instant app headed to Xbox 360 in 'near future'
- Take-Two's revenue from digital content grew 244 percent
- Unboxing the Dead Space 3 Dev Team Edition
- This is how you redeem cross-buy games on your PS3
- KickBeat is looking like music to the ears of Vita owners
- Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge outed for PS3 / 360
- Live Show: A Hitman HD Trilogy giveaway extravaganza!
- Here's what Skylanders: Swap Force looks like in action
- Tomb Raider, Crysis 3 free with with AMD graphics cards
- Metacritic ranks the best and worst publishers of 2012
- CastleStorm crosses tower defense with Angry Birds
- Nintendo claims to finally understand HD development
- Five space horror games worse than Dead Space 3
- Team Fortress 2sdays: Swishiee is a hero
- Hands-on with the new 3DMark
- Two Sly Cooper games are actually coming out today
- The next Magicka is coming to tablets, and it's fun
| Quadrilateral Cowboy arms you with programming Posted: 05 Feb 2013 03:00 PM PST
Blendo Games, the developers behind Thirty Flights of Loving and Gravity Bone, have released a video for their upcoming project, Quadrilateral Cowboy. Besides having one of the best titles ever, Quadrilateral Cowboy is a game about using programming code to hack and solve puzzles. I would doubt that any previous knowledge of programming is required, though only time will tell. The possibilities seem almost endless when it comes to puzzle solving of this nature. There are usually a ton of different ways to execute the same code, so it will be up to the player to get creative. Quadrilateral Cowboy is set to release sometime this year, and I can't wait! |
| Raiden will steal boss weapons in Metal Gear Revengeance Posted: 05 Feb 2013 02:00 PM PST
Our latest look at Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance shows off some of the bosses weapons Raiden can earn after defeating bosses. The Pole-Arm looks great for fighting groups of enemies, the tactical sai can pull you into enemies, and the pincer blades appear to just obliterate whatever it comes in contact with. But wait! There's more. The video below shows off Raiden fighting some of the robotic enemies you'll be coming across. Like robot gorillas and robot raptors!
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| The Witcher 3 Announced, Day Z Gameplay & The Last Of Us Posted: 05 Feb 2013 01:30 PM PST
Dead Space 3 came out, and it doesn't suck, according to some people. (Other people say it sucks.) The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt got announced, which we saw coming, but it still sounds at least thirty times more awesome than its predecessor. The Ouya is actually seeing the light of day in the next few months, which is kinda crazy, and Day Z dev diaries unveil some in-game footage. Meanwhile, The Last Of Us is stacking up to be much more frightening than anyone anticipated. |
| Paradox talks quality: Expect fewer and better titles Posted: 05 Feb 2013 01:00 PM PST Although I can't call myself an avid player of Paradox Interactive games, I've gotten the real sense that the company has come a long way, even in the last year, in terms of quality. Speaking to Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester, GameSpy brought up the poorly executed Gettysburg: Armored Warfare and its problematic launch. "That was terrible," said Wester. "We did not do our homework. It was a one-man team with some backup ... we learned a lot from that release. We've had many bad releases before that, as well, and we learned something every time. In 2012, we also closed four game projects. This happened after Gettysburg. We looked at them and said, 'These games are not up to the standards we're currently looking for at Paradox, so we're going to close these projects.' We're not going to have any more games that are unplayable at release." Reflecting on an internal shift within Paradox, the CEO says that "A few years ago, we simply could not afford to cancel games. We needed to release the best product we could release at the time in order to get at least some of the cash we invested back. Today, thanks to the success of games like Magicka and Crusader Kings 2, the Paradox brand is worth so much more that we can actually afford to close projects that don't meet our new quality standards. "We turned into a more mature company in the last few years, mature in many ways. This year, you'll start to see much more even quality to our games that we're releasing, and that's a sign of our coming of age." In closing, Wester promised "That's what you'll see from Paradox -- fewer and better titles. The quality improvement is the most important thing we're working on right now." Paradox Rising: Q&A with CEO Fredrik Wester [GameSpy via GamesIndustry International] |
| E3 to hold a college game competition Posted: 05 Feb 2013 12:45 PM PST A new program launched by the ESA for E3 will have the best student games showcased at this year's show. The E3 College Game Competition lets an institution with a game program submit one game representing their college, and the five best of those will be showcased at E3. A panel of game industry veterans and professionals will judge these entries. This is an excellent opportunity for up-and-coming game makers as they'll get to show their work in the same place as the pros do. And the members of the game press are everywhere, so there's even more exposure opportunities beyond that. Tokyo Game Show does something like this for Japan, and it's always neat to check out their schools' latest creations. Some of the weirdest stuff comes from these schools. For those interested, contact the ESA via email at ESA@theESA.com. Submissions will be accepted starting March 15, with the final deadline hitting April 19. |
| Dead Space 3 exploit already found for infinite items Posted: 05 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST There's a different resource management system in place for Dead Space 3 that goes toward building your own weapons from the ground up. You can find items throughout your adventure, or you can just be lazy and buy items through the microtransaction option that comes up every time you want to build something. Or in the case of this little glitch that Game Front discovered, you can exploit a specific room in chapter 8 of the game so you can infinitely get items over and over again. Nice. Dead Space 3: Infinite Item Spawning Location [Game Front] |
| Capcom asks for your favorite Street Fighter characters Posted: 05 Feb 2013 11:30 AM PST Capcom currently has a poll up asking readers for their top five Street Fighter characters. They say it's to "help with future games, marketing, and licensing opportunities." It seems as if no stone is left unturned, considering that even Lee is on the list, but I'm no expert. Here are my favorites, in order:
Hakan is my absolute favorite SF character of all time. It's a shame he doesn't get more love, since now it's unlikely he'll ever appear in a future title. With the exception of Chun-Li, I'm also a sucker for lower-tier characters. I don't plan it out that way, it's just that they are generally more fun to play as. What about you? Who are your top five? |
| Redbox Instant app headed to Xbox 360 in 'near future' Posted: 05 Feb 2013 11:00 AM PST The Xbox 360 is getting another exclusive this year, but it isn't a game. Rather, it's an additional method for streaming movies on the console. Major Nelson brings word that the Redbox Instant app will be gracing the system "in the very near future" with a combination streaming/disc offer. Beyond the obvious streaming access to Redbox's digital content library, the subscriptions include four one-night credits each month that can be used at the company's physical kiosks. Instant subscription packages come in two varieties: $8 per month for DVD rentals, and $9 per month for Blu-ray rentals. Users can also purchase and rent movies using this app without a sub on a movie-by-movie basis. It's going to take quite a lot to get me away from Netflix, I'll say that much. Should you be curious enough to sign up for it, there's a Redbox Instant beta which you can sign up for here. |
| Take-Two's revenue from digital content grew 244 percent Posted: 05 Feb 2013 10:30 AM PST Take-Two Interactive has posted its third-quarter fiscal 2013 financial results, reporting a GAAP net revenue of $415.8 million compared to $236.3 million for the same quarter last year. The company saw a 244 percent year-over-year growth in revenue from digitally delivered content, with emphasis placed on earnings generated from Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the Grand Theft Auto series, and NBA 2K13. "Our results benefited from the record-breaking launch of NBA 2K13, along with continued strong demand for Borderlands 2, the successful launch of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and robust holiday sales of our catalog and growing portfolio of digitally delivered offerings," said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. "With consumer anticipation building for the launches of BioShock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto V, we are well positioned for a solid finish to fiscal year 2013 and substantial revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2014." "Successful" and "XCOM" in the same sentence? Feels good, man! On that note, it would seem the other XCOM, the one without a fancy subtitle, is still in development despite how little we've heard on that front. The earnings report lists the first-person shooter as still having a fiscal year 2014 release for Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. |
| Unboxing the Dead Space 3 Dev Team Edition Posted: 05 Feb 2013 10:15 AM PST
In a moment of madness, and due to having more money than sense, I ended up purchasing the Dead Space 3 Dev Team Edition. I didn't mean to do it, it just ... kind of happened. Unable to change the past, the package arrived today, straight from the mysterious land of Ontario, and I unboxed it in a video. I don't know why I did that. It's just ... something we games media idiots do to justify possessing ludicrous amounts of plastic nonsense. Check out what's in the box, which is now currently out of stock through official channels. If you want one, maybe you can steal it from somebody weaker than you. Just pretend life is Fist of the North Star and might entitles you to stuff. Or, you can just read our review of the game! |
| This is how you redeem cross-buy games on your PS3 Posted: 05 Feb 2013 10:09 AM PST Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is out today, and I've already had a stampede of readers who have no idea how to redeem their cross-buy copy. For those of you who aren't familiar with Sony's promotion, if you buy the $39.99 PS3 version of Sly Cooper (or any game within the cross-buy realm), you'll get a free digital Vita copy. But this process isn't as simple as redeeming a code included in the game. People who already utilized this function in the past with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale may know the drill, but for the rest of you, you're probably in the dark. Let me help. All you have to do is put the disc in your system, go into the XMB, and under the game folder, find "Disc Benefits." Select that option, and follow the instructions to link the disc to your PSN account (you should be signed in for this). Voilà! Once you link it, you can't repeat the process again, but you'll be able to bust out your Vita and download your free copy of the game. Since the PSN doesn't "fully update" at once in terms of game listings, you may need to manually search for "Sly Cooper" on your Vita's store to utilize the cross-buy function. You also may find that the Disc Benefits screen says "this content is coming soon." All that means is that the PSN needs to update (usually in the evening, EST time) before you redeem it. It's not broken. |
| KickBeat is looking like music to the ears of Vita owners Posted: 05 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST Remember music games? Yeah, those were fun. With the genre's better (or at least its mainstream) days behind, I'm always interested to see in what weird and unique ways it will pop back up. Enter KickBeat, from the house that brought out Zen Pinball. While we covered a lot of its specifics when Conrad last saw it at E3, we did recently get to see a few new additions to the combat, including enemy types and combos. KickBeat (PlayStation Vita) If you've played any rhythm game of the past decade, you'll get KickBeat at its most basic level. Rather than hitting a string of notes or arrows though, you're hitting waves of oncoming enemies as they step on pads corresponding to the Vita's face buttons. In a traditional rhythm game, you lose after spending an ambiguous amount of time failing. KickBeat records your staying power like a fighting game instead, represented by an onscreen health bar. If you fail to hit a note, that translates into taking a hit from your attacker, which deals damage based on difficulty. Successfully hit notes, and you string together combos which, other than looking pretty cool, act as score multipliers. Enemies are quick to switch things up, though. You will start to encounter new enemy types, and while the method to beating them is ultimately the same, there is a nice risk reward system built into it. For example, yellow enemies go down the same as others, but if you hold down the face button you used to knock him out until you take out another yellow, you are rewarded with bonus points. A viable strategy on perhaps the normal setting, but leaving yourself a thumb short on harder tracks may not be the wisest of moves. Eventually enemies will also start attacking in unison, requiring you to hit two face buttons at once. The d-pad is usable as an input as well, making defending against front and back attacks at once a lot easier. Ever try hitting triangle and X on a Vita? It's not the easiest. While KickBeat offers a modest 18 tracks, the game does offer an analyzer, allowing you to import your own music. While this feature was not part of our demo, fingers crossed that it will work as promised, because the available music isn't exactly a who's who of music. While its great to see lesser known artist get a shot at promotion through music game, I can't exactly see Shen Yi setting your ears ablaze with awesome. Perhaps another gripe would be the axed multiplayer mode, but for $10, its not an easy gripe to hold onto. If we're being honest, the Vita just needs some games right now, and KickBeat isn't a bad way to go. |
| Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge outed for PS3 / 360 Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:45 AM PST Not even three months since Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge landed, we already have evidence that PS3 and 360 ports of the enhanced Wii U port are on the way. Japanese retailer Rakuten has let slip that Razor's Edge will drop for PS3 and 360 on April 4, 2013. It will contain all the extra DLC characters and costumes from the Wii U build. So, yeah. The situation is not much different than when Nintendo published Samurai Warriors 3, only for the game to later be ported to the PS3. Curiously the PS3 version never left Japan, but I don't doubt Ninja Gaiden will see worldwide release. NINJA GAIDEN 3： Razor's Edge BLJM-61010 2013 [Rakuten via All Games Beta] |
| Live Show: A Hitman HD Trilogy giveaway extravaganza! Posted: 05 Feb 2013 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.] Join us for Mash Tactics this evening not only for some awesome Hitman HD Trilogy action, but also for one of the biggest giveaways we've ever held at the live channel. Our amazing friends over at Square Enix have dropped an awesome-bomb on us in the form of literally a pile of Hitman themed goodies to hand out as we play. Check out the epic list of items below.
Insanity! Make sure to drop by Dtoid.TV tonight, as we'll be giving most of the items away using the Twitch.TV giveaway app, in chat trivia, and so on. However, we have two sets of items that I'm going to make you work a bit for. If you noticed, we have two copies of the Hitman 2: Silent Assassin soundtrack, signed by the one and only Jesper Kyd. These are extremely rare, thus a little special attention is needed. What you need to do to have a chance at winning one of these soundtracks, is drop a Hitman themed rap in the comments below. After tonight's broadcast, I'll pick my two favorites, and announce them during the live show tomorrow. |
| Here's what Skylanders: Swap Force looks like in action Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:15 AM PST
The next Skylanders game was revealed early in the morning today and it's going to let you swap different toy parts to make new heroes. Yes, you get to break the toys in half, but on purpose! Skylanders: Swap Force has a pretty cool gimmick to it with the new toys, giving you a potential of 256 unique combinations. All your old toys will work in the new game in addition to the 16 new Swappable toys, and there will be totally new regular characters added to Swap Force as well. And as you can see in the trailer, it's looking pretty cool. You can't tell by the trailer unfortunately, but what I saw in person makes it look like you're playing an animated movie essentially thanks to the new engine by developer Vicarious Visions. |
| Tomb Raider, Crysis 3 free with with AMD graphics cards Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST If you've been holding off buying one of AMD's top-end graphics cards, then here's an offer that may make you splash out. You can get a free copy of Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3 with the purchase of an HD 7900 card, and similarly, HD 7800 cards will include Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider for not a single extra cent. The offer is only available in the US and Canada, but I've found a UK offer that will nab you some Square Enix titles for free. I've had an HD 7900 in my stupidly over-the-top PC for a few months now and it's made games like Devil May Cry look astounding. |
| Metacritic ranks the best and worst publishers of 2012 Posted: 05 Feb 2013 08:45 AM PST Metacritic has just published its annual publisher power rankings, taking each publisher's games for 2012, and seeing who came out on top. Of course, all of the usual suspects are here, including Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and...EA with the top spot? It seems as if Mass Effect 3, one of the best reviewed games of 2012, had a hand in their success (despite what people thought of the ending), as did a generally large amount of games with positive review scores, like Kingdoms of Amalur, and the fact that PopCap was included. Next is Microsoft Studios, with Mark of the Ninja as their top release, followed by Sony and Journey, and Nintendo with Xenoblade Chronicles. Capping off the top five is Capcom with Okami HD at the top spot (the power of nostalgia compels you!), but the list goes on to include all of the big names, like Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and more. If you dig deep enough you'll find other interesting information, like the fact that Skullgirls was Konami's best-reviewed title of 2012, or that 007 Legends was Activision's worst. Another pertinent bit of info for me personally is that the Dark Souls DLC was Namco Bandai's top release critically! While it may be a bit silly to include DLC in the rankings, nonetheless, this is the data Metacritic chose to go off of. What do you think? Metacritic's 3rd Annual Game Publisher Rankings [Metacritic] |
| CastleStorm crosses tower defense with Angry Birds Posted: 05 Feb 2013 08:30 AM PST CastleStorm is definitely not a game that's easy to draw a frame of reference for. One part Jenga, and one part tower defense, this mash up certainly draws from opposite genres to get its own formula going. Once it's off though, its may surprise with just how tasking, and fun, it can be. CastleStorm (Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC, Mobile) CastleStorm is an oddity that's not the easiest to explain. Each match is a battle with the same objective: destroy the other team's castle. The main method of destroying a castle is to hurl projectiles at it until the superstructure collapses. The projectiles themselves come in a variety of forms, including a single standard, one that breaks off into smaller pieces, a few bomb variants -- stop me if this is sounding familiar. While it is certainly Angry Birds inspired, CastleStorm is hardly a retread. Depending on the map you're playing, there are a variety of secondary objectives that can really put the screws to you, testing your ability to multitask. During my playthrough, my secondary objectives were to guard a convoy of peasants running from enemy forces, and capturing a center, neutral flag. It's here that CastleStorm shows its strategic sensibilities. Operating on a traditional resource system, you can spawn troops for a cost to fight battles. Since fights are on a 2D plane, there is little in the way of micromanaging units, resource gathering, and the like. Running the fantasy gamut of mage, archers and warriors, your troops are AI controlled, though you can use your projectiles meant for the enemy castle on enemy units, if you absolutely crave direct intervention. There is also no real resource gathering, as they will simply regenerate over time. So without a direct element of control in the minute of battle, CastleStorm seems simple enough right? Wrong. While no one given objective was in itself a challenge, it's when I had three -- even on normal difficulty -- that the real juggling act starts. Hurl a couple of bombs at the enemy castle, now spawn warriors to cap the flag, set the archers to take out enemy infantry, get mages on the field to assist the peasants; oops now I'm dead because the enemy took out my castle. It really takes a minute to settle into a good rhythm for each map. There's a good amount of planning that takes place outside of battle, mostly in the form of the castle editor. From here, you can create your own fortress, complete with barracks to spawn extra troops, labs for resources, and so one. Custom castles can be used online too. While I didn't get to see it in my demo, you can expect CastleStorm to ship with co-op, survival, and adversarial modes when it's released next month. Certainly an interesting approach to tower defense, and one worth watching out for. |
| Nintendo claims to finally understand HD development Posted: 05 Feb 2013 08:15 AM PST Throughout the day, we've been highlighting notable points from Nintendo's recent corporate management policy meeting, such as Animal Crossing: New Leaf's success, cloud gaming, and communicating Wii U's value. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata and EAD General Manager Shigeru Miyamoto have also touched upon the difficulties in learning HD development and how they seem to finally have a firm grip on the technology. "We did not actively use technologies to render high-end graphics in real time for software development for Wii and previous consoles," Miyamoto explained in regards to the shift from Wii to Wii U. "[W]e needed to hold many workshops to learn about such technologies. We already went through this initial learning phase and are now tackling how to take full advantage of high-definition graphics. In this sense, retraining our developers used to be a great hurdle." While Nintendo is new to the HD game, it values the experience of third-party developers who are seasoned in such technologies thanks to their work on other platforms. "[M]any of our third-party software developers have been dedicated to technologies like shaders," Miyamoto continued. "As Wii U is designed to bring out their real strengths, there have recently been more cases where we develop something with their help. It has been more convenient for us to work together with them because they have been able to more smoothly utilize their know-how for development for Wii U. Despite the extensive knowledge of third parties, the fact remains that the Wii U is completely new hardware that requires a learning period no matter who you are. Iwata explained that the final version of Wii U dev kits weren't available until the later half of 2012, after which all developers working on the hardware had to undergo a trail-and-error phase. Nintendo was no exception, hence the lack of "hardware-pushing" first-party software out the gate. "I think that this [trial-and-error stage] is true for third-party software developers as well as Nintendo's," Iwata noted. "The home consoles of other companies are six or seven years old and software developers have sufficiently studied them and know how to take full advantage of them well. As Wii U is new to them, some developers have already acquired the knack and made good use of its features and others have not. You might see this gap among the games that are currently available." Hence relative jankiness of several pieces of launch software, regardless of how well the games run on the 360 or PS3. Iwata isn't too worried because all developers need is time to get a feel for the hardware. "Actually, we believe that our in-house development teams have almost reached the next stage," Iwata boomed with confidence. "It is not true that we are deadlocked with a lot of trouble in our development. Otherwise, we could not aim for 100 billion yen or more in operating profit for the next fiscal year." Sounds like Iwata and Miyamoto believe the Wii U is going to be alright in the coming year, thanks to a deeper understanding of this new level of technology. Will it pay off? Tune in next week! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel! Third Quarter Financial Results Briefing for the 73rd Fiscal Term [Nintendo via VideoGamer] |
| Five space horror games worse than Dead Space 3 Posted: 05 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST By now, you may have heard the inarguable, absolute truth -- as is the case with Destructoid's reviews that are handed down from the maker to our holy reviewers -- that Dead Space 3 is not as great as the first two games. Before we brashly label Dead Space 3 as less than great, we should put things in perspective. How? First, by remembering Dead Space 1 and 2 are two of the greatest games of the past decade. Secondly, by taking a look at these five turds of space horror. It astounds me that Capcom hasn't brought the Resident Evil franchise to space -- though some Dino Crisis 3 detractors will insist that this is a good thing -- so Galerians is the next best thing. Except it's really not "best" at anything. Exploring a futuristic lab as an androgynous, psi-enabled 14-year-old boy is an okay concept, but developer Polygon Magic (Incredible Crisis) piled on convoluted mechanics, muddy backgrounds, and unintuitive controls. Its PS2 sequel didn't fare much better. After releasing the little-known pioneer of survival horror Doctor Hauzer, developer Riverhill Software took the genre to space with OverBlood and its even more baffling sequel. From the voice acting to combat, OverBlood stood as a reminder of how much Capcom pushed things forward with Resident Evil -- which, let's be honest, didn't have good voice acting or combat to begin with. OverBlood was rescued from complete obscurity by Game Informer's Super Replay series, in which the crew played through this bizarre series in its entirety. Laugh at their misfortune, instead of suffering yourself. As an anxious new recruit at Destructoid, I jumped at any review opportunity that entered my inbox in 2011. When I played Afterfall, that habit was corrected. Afterfall begins well enough -- despite looking like an Unreal Engine 3 school project -- but things go horribly wrong once the the plot sets off into generic sci-fi horrorland. The game's shameless coping of Dead Space wouldn't be so bad if the shooting and puzzles were remotely enjoyable. I was praying the game would just end, and my prayers were answered: I was playing an erroneously labeled retail copy that was really a preview build. Bullet dodged! Here's one nice thing I can say about Lifeline: It was ahead of its time. And now, here's the truth: It's still hot garbage. Trying to control an avatar by voice commands wouldn't even be fun if it worked properly, which Lifeline didn't. Watching this space waitress run into walls and open the wrong door is enough to make anyone pine for the days of tank controls. From Software was never a developer of hit titles -- not until Demon's Souls that is -- but Echo Night is a notch more obscure than its King's Field and Armored Core series. Beyond, the third entry in the franchise, takes place in space and accurately depicts how boring it must be to live on a space station, ghosts or not. Beyond has some great ambition and atmosphere, but the end result is game so dull that I wanted to open the air lock and go spiraling out into space. In many ways, it feels like precursor to Frictional Games' excellent blending of first-person adventure and horror. I can only imagine how great Beyond could have been in Frictional's hands. |
| Team Fortress 2sdays: Swishiee is a hero Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:45 AM PST Every Tuesday a bunch of us Dtoiders get together and hop online to play some Team Fortress 2 on the official Destructoid server! You should join us! Alright guys, I'm going to drop some knowledge on you. That server we all like kickin' it on? That nonsense is paid entirely by completely by our community awesome-guy Swishiee. Want to help out? Swishiee made a site perfectly designed for you to holla atcha' boy. You should do said holla'-ing. Anyway, hit the jump for tonight's details. Server Early Match Late Match cp_manor_event If you have any suggestions for next week's match, sound off below! Also, we'd love to recap this week's events during next week's post, so take lots of screenshots and email them to spencer[@]destructoid.com! |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:30 AM PST As a PC gamer, a big part of the experience is our hardware. Even if you don't build the machine yourself, there is a good chance that you'll upgrade the components at some point. Once a new PC is put together, one of the first things to figure out is how good it is. A good way to see just what a computer can do is to use benchmarking software. This type of software will run a series of tests that monitor exactly how many frames-per-second a computer can render. I got a chance to take a look at the latest 3DMark, which has been a standard for testing computers for a while. This latest version delivers easy-to-use tools to test just about any hardware, and it's also available now from Steam's software section, making it even more accessible.
3DMark (PC) One of the first things I noticed about the latest 3DMark is how many different types of devices it covers. The main test option screen has three different series of tests you can run that are clearly marked for "mobile devices and entry-level PCs," "notebooks and home PCs," and "high performance gaming PCs." This makes it easy to tell what would be best for your system. The gaming PC option has an even further "extreme" setting to test out any Gigantor systems out there. 3DMark has tests that are suited for anything from a cheap desktop all the way up to a high-end monster. Picking the test you want to run is easy to choose and navigate. Most users will probably just stick to the main "Tests" screen. When you click on a test, the software clearly explains what the test is and what it does, and starting it is as as simple as clicking on the "run" button. Each test is made up of several parts and each of these parts focuses on something different. For example, the gaming PC test is comprised of four parts. The first section has heavy tessellation and volumetric illumination, part two has smoke and particles, part three has physics that measure CPU performance, and the final step combines all of these things to see how well the overall performance stacks up. The benefit of breaking it up in this way is that it's easy to see what slows down your system. If the CPU portion slows everything down, it might be time to upgrade or overclock. Results are easy to access from the top menu tab, and they can be compared online against other users. A score is assigned to the overall system and to each separate test. The results even show temperatures in a graph, which is a nice tool for anyone who is trying to overclock their system. Results are also saved, so it's possible to compare earlier test scores to see if new tweaks or hardware improvements were worthwhile. There is also a tab for running custom tests, which are based on the three main tests but they can be customized. Things like screen resolution, shadow map size, texture filtering, and MSAA sample counts can be configured to see how they affect performance. This is good if you want to see if something like lowering the resolution has a significant impact on how smoothly the system runs. There are three versions of 3DMark available. The Basic Edition, which is free, runs all three tests and gives you an overall system score. The Advanced Edition is $24.99 and allows you to choose which tests you want to run and includes access to the "extreme" setting. There is also a Professional Edition, which is licensed for commercial use and has some heavy-duty tools like command line automation. If you just want to see how your system compares to other users, the free version is a good place to start. However, if you're going to be building a system or overclocking, the Advanced Edition is a great tool to have. I've used 3DMark software since I started building my own PCs, and it's always come in handy. |
| Two Sly Cooper games are actually coming out today Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:15 AM PST
In addition to the launch of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time for the PlayStation 3 and Vita (cross-buy for PS3), another franchise title is coming out today on the PSN: Bentley's Hackpack. It's priced at $2.99, and will also be part of Sony's cross-buy promotion, so purchasing it will net you both the PS3 and Vita versions. For your cash, you'll get three types of minigames, 20 stages, 100 challenges, and leaderboards. Why is this the first time most of you are hearing about this game? Because Sony completely threw out any chances at the game's success by completely ignoring it until they nonchalantly placed it in the last paragraph of a press release on release day, that's why. I really hope developer Sanzaru Games doesn't suffer the same fate as SuperBot. Bentley's Hackpack Game Trailer [YouTube via Shacknews] |
| The next Magicka is coming to tablets, and it's fun Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:00 AM PST When Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester revealed the company's plans to expand into cross-platform multiplayer experiences last week at the Paradox Convention, I was extremely interested to see what the Swedish publisher would be showcasing. One might even say excited. After the trailer for Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet faded to black, my enthusiasm was greatly diminished. To my eyes it looked like a stripped-down, 2D Magicka for platforms I rarely care about. The humor was still there, at least in the video, but I was less sure about everything else. Half an hour with the game, played co-operatively with four other journalists, and my fears were significantly reduced. This is definitely still Magicka, and it has the potential to be a bit of a riot.
Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet (Android, iOS) The core Magicka experience of combining and experimenting with often highly destructive spells while in a four-player party has been left completely intact in this tablet spin-off. At first glance, it certainly doesn't look very much like its predecessor, with the somewhat uninspired 2D cartoon aesthetic and lack of levels ripe for exploration, but it very quickly starts to feel exceedingly similar. After running through the single-player tutorial, I quickly got to grips with the touch controls, and actually found firing off spells and combining them to create new, more potent, arcane weapons of mass destruction to actually be slightly more intuitive than in the original game. The seven base spells are one short of the PC forebear. The arcane spell is no longer present, but has actually just been combined with the life spell. So, if you want to annihilate a foe with a toasty beam of fire, you select the fire spell, then the life spell, and voilà -- you've melted a monster. All of these spells are presented as large, obvious buttons at the bottom of the screen. Pressing one adds that spell to your wizard's spell combo, shown just above the character, and by touching anywhere else on the screen the spell is activated. And by activated I mean that it usually kills something. Frequently a friend. Select the fire and earth spells, and both of those icons will appear above your character, so you always know what's in your immediate loadout. Upon completing a level, the psychopathic wizards are awarded coins which can in turn be spent on items such as new staffs, robes, scrolls, and even familiars. The item descriptions are appropriately amusing and irreverent, and sometimes lampoon other games. I couldn't help but want the grisly chainsaw staff wielded by hairy men who like to kill things. Gears of War could probably do with an injection of magic. With my new double staff (sticking two staffs together is the tried-and-tested method for making things more awesome) and weird-looking froggy familiar, I joined my three companions in a co-op level. All levels can be played with chums and feature two difficulty levels. When asked which difficulty we'd like to choose, I immediately said "hard." I mean, we play games for a living, surely we could handle it. We were beset by all manner of beasties the moment we started, and within 10 seconds, I was a red smear on the ground. Freshly resurrected by another player, I opted for a more cautious approach. Another writer decided to act as the healer, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief. 15 seconds later our healer was dead because I threw a flaming rock at his face. Not only has team-killing returned in Wizards of the Square Tablet, if anything it's going to be a lot more common. For every monster slain, there was a sheepish apology as yet another wizard was frozen, set on fire, electrocuted, or pelted with rocks by an ally. The small, linear areas mean that there will rarely be a time when players aren't getting in each other's way. This is very much a feature, rather than poor level design. That said, the three levels I played through (including the tutorial) were rather lackluster. They were just straight, unobstructed paths with nothing in front or behind other than more enemies. These wandering, ravenous, blood-thirsty horrors are rather splendid, though, and do go a long way to make up for the slightly ho-hum areas. They all look a bit dorky and kooky, until they open their jaws and devour a hapless wizard or squash them under a large boot. Likewise, the wizards themselves have some great designs once some of the more outrageous robes have been unlocked. I'm still not sold on the overall look, but within it I found plenty to like. Getting from one level to another requires traversing the overworld map. Here I saw more branching paths, though it seemed more like a pretense of openness, as it's still quite linear in practice. However, the levels (represented as wee nodes) can be repeated to try and get higher scores, play with more people, or attempt a different difficulty. These friend-slaying, monster-exploding, staff-waving adventures are about 5-10 minutes long, and so don't present a real time-sink. This is definitely something to be played with on the bus, or, indeed, between summoning demons or stirring cauldrons. Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet will be maintained, unfortunately, through micro-transactions. It seems to be the sad truth of many tablet games that folk simply don't see the point in paying traditional prices for a title they may only play between what are perceived as more robust experiences. It looks like you'll be able to spend real cash to get currency to spend in the shop, so hopefully the micro-transactions will merely exist to speed up the process of kitting one's wizard out in all the latest fashions. No word yet on how the cost of such things, though. The latest Magicka romp releases in a few weeks, so keep your eyes open for the release date -- no doubt we'll have it soon. I was pleasantly surprised by my hands-on time with Wizards of the Square Tablet, and while I don't see it gripping people in the same way that the original has, I suspect that it will be a welcome experience in Magicka fans' tablet library. |
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