No one told me leveling tradeskills in this game would be THIS boring lol. So I'll tell you about what happen over the weekend. Long story short I was in a developer live stream.
Rustis the new game from the people behind Garry's Mod. It's in alpha right now and it's a mix of Minecraft and DayZ where you cut down trees to build sanctuaries from the crippling cold. It's currently in alpha, and like DayZ, will surely produce many moments like this one incident.
So after exploring the empty backstage area of gaming to find something weird for you guys to watch, I found this gem of a game called Age of Time. I mean this is not the normal Lucha game by any means. It's pretty strange. I don't understand it one bit. But, it's like 32 Mg and I figured we could all play it like some dumb community thing get frustrated and be stupid.
Plastic Piranha's Rekoil is coming out at the end of this month. Expect the Windows PC version on January 28 through Steam. The Xbox Live Arcade version is titled Rekoil: Liberator, and that's out January 29.
Each version will run for $14.99, but those that want to pre-order via Steam can get the game for 30% off, bringing the game down to $10.49.
What can you expect? 40 different weapons, seven game modes, ten maps, and five customizable classes. Plus the PC version has modding tools, and more importantly, has a higher chance of a player base and on-going support than what the console version would see.
Right now, it's a pretty popular option to let subscribers of free-to-play games pay a monthly fee to get extra stuff on top of the F2P experience. Players of EverQuest, EverQuest II, and PlanetSide 2 currently get 500 "Station Cash" monthly, but starting February you'll have the option to pick up an item worth 2000 -- you can miss this item, so you have to choose every month. DC Universe Online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroeswill have their own changes in tow for Legendary and Gold members respectively.
My problem with games with "sub" options on top of F2P is that they ultimately don't offer as much value as a full-on subscription based game. With all of the microtransactions on top of that "premium" sub, dedicated players just end up paying more than they would for a standard MMO and get less content for it. Still, it's a fine line, because some people only want to dabble in MMOs and don't want to commit to a monthly fee -- so they won't be playing games like Elder Scrolls Online.
Hopefully in the future there will be some sort of consistent compromise, but the developers that are working on WildStar seem to be dabbling in that.
[Dtoid community blogger TheDustinThomas shares some of his experiences from his time working at Blockbuster (RIP). Want to see your own blog appear on our front page? Go write something! --Mr Andy Dixon]
Most gamers around my age have tons of sentimental memories regarding their favorite rental shops growing up. These days, renting has become almost entirely a thing of the past, especially now that Blockbuster is a faint memory. I never rented from Blockbuster as a kid; we instead rented from our local Marsh Supermarket. Yeah, renting movies and games from the grocery store was a thing you could do. I spent so much of my parents' money renting NES games and late 80s WWF Home Videos. I got out of the renting game in the N64 era, and I even had a few-year period where I didn't really game that much. It wasn't until I got hired on at a local Blockbuster Video that I started renting games again, because renting a game for free for a week is a lot better than paying $7 for five days.
This was in 2005, right in the heart of the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era. Unfortunately, even though my store was one of the more busy ones in the area, we didn't get a very good selection of games, and any decent games we did receive, we would only get one or two copies of. We have 2 copies of Resident Evil 4, but don't worry, we have 25 copies of Madden 2006!
Since our selection was so barren, I took a lot of chances on games that I had seen get rented out often. Sometimes this worked out great, like with God of War and The Suffering, but more often than not, I wound up on the losing end of the deal. The following is a list of games that I found to get rented the most for no good reason.
This week on Sup Holmes, we welcome Will Brierly to the program. Will's probably best known for the unfairly compelling underground hit Soda Drinker Pro, and why not? The New York Post, The Boston Herald, and the French think it's an important game. Two newspapers and an entire country can't be wrong. It even has a surprise!
Will's also worked onMy Girl (based on the hit Macaulay Culkin feel good film), the upcoming Oculus Rift title Gator Time, the playable music video for Wheat's Living 2 Die Vs. Dying 2 Live, and new arcade game Get Outta My Face, and many, many other games. Too many to list! We'll be talking about what got him into game development, how he's honed his wild, trashy style, the risks and challenges of creating a game that looks dumb but is secretly maybe not that dumb, and a lot more. Tune int at 1pm PST/4pm EST for the full shebang!
Just a quick reminder that Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 is underway! The seven day marathon benefits Prevent Cancer Foundation and will see people racing to beat games quick while raising money. On top of all the speed running, Simon Vicklund (Payday, Bionic Commando Rearmed) is lending his talents to the campaign, offering to remix one of a number for NES soundtracks depending on which gets the most bids.
900 games are on deck this year, and you can see the full schedule right here. Otherwise the stream is embedded below, and here's the donation page.
A source has teased a new clue to Siliconera that the new Ultra Street Fighter IV character has been seen before in the comics. So either she's been in the Street Fighter II manga, or the UDON series.
Shoryuken speculates that it's Sarai Kurosawa, a friend of Ibuki who's made an appearance in an UDON comic, plus she's made cameos in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Street Fighter X Tekken. Other potential ladies could be the Dolls, Gouken's daughter, and well a ton of other potential ladies.
My favorite theory at the moment comes from reader Reinhold Hoffmann who suggests it's just Yoshinori Ono dressed up as Chun Li.
Hey remember that Throne Together trademark that was filed by Microsoft? Yeah turns out it's a block-based puzzle game for Windows 8.
It's a game where you have to place blocks down to build castles. You have to be careful with how you place down the blocks, as uneven weight distribution will make your castle fall. It's free to play so long as you have Windows 8.1.
Sorry Brett, your dream of a Game of Thrones and Drawn Together crossover are DEAD.
Last week on Sup Holmes (now on iTunes), we spent a fast hour and a half with Marcus Lindblom, localization and translation head on Earthbound. Having gotten his start as a tech adviser and game counselor, he was eventually promoted to work on localization and copy editing, with Wario's Woods being one of his first games. From there he moved on to work on Earthbound (writing a lot of the jokes, naming items, and creating new objects like the Eraser Eraser when needed), and eventually to other huge franchises like Destroy All Humans, Evil Dead: Regeneration, and... Halo 4? I doubt you saw that one coming.
With over 20 years in the industry, Marcus had a wealth of insights, opinions and anecdotes to share. We talked about his dreams of making a new Mother game with Shigesato Itoi that focuses on reliving the levity and sweetness found in Earthbound, how he's saddened by the the way certain AAA games seem to have a pre-installed review score of 9/10 or above based solely on their budgets and intellectual properties, how he's quite unhappy with a lot of his work on Earthbound and would love to re-write it, his plans for a new Facebook-based RTS, and so much more.
The saddest, most surprising bit for me was when he revealed former plans to write a book about his experiences working on Earthbound, only to have Nintendo ask him not to go forward with the project. With Earthbound finding new success on the Wii U virtual console (reportedly selling more copies on re-release than it did initially on the SNES), I'd think that Nintendo would want to jump on anything that will help keep the game in the headlines and fans feeling passionate and talkative about the game. I suppose this goes right in line with their attitude towards shutting down Lets Players. I know there are plenty of people within the company that are firmly against that kind of thing, though history would prove that they are often overruled.
Dragon Fantasy Book II released last year for PS3 and Vita, improving on Dragon Fantasy Book Iwith 16-bit graphics and a more fully realized soundtrack. What you may not know is that the soundtrack was composed by our very own corgi-loving Editor-in-Chief, Dale North. What you also may not know is that the soundtrack has debuted at MAGFest and will be going on sale on January 6.
It does a fantastic job of evoking SNES-era role-playing game soundtracks, with tracks ranging from sweeping orchestral pieces fit for untold adventures to funk bass infused tunes appropriate for exploring the more disreputable locations of the fantasy world. And I'm not just saying that because Dale could fire me at a moment's notice! Ha ha ha. Ha. No really, it's good, I promise.
In case you want a free sample, check out "Hypothecary" below or download it from Destructoid's SoundCloud.
Continue?9876543210 is the latest from the mind that brought usSkrillex Quest. Developer Jason Oda hopes that his new game "the first great cerebral indie game of the year following in the foot steps of Gone Home, Papers Please, and the Novelist."
The game stars a dead and failed videogame character left wandering the recesses of the Random Access Memory. You're trying to find peace in your final moments before being deleted forever, and doubles as an existential metaphor of life and how we live it.
Jason shared the inspiration behind the game, from road trips to nowhere, Peruvian jungle drugs, and "a brush with death while hopelessly lost in the mountains of New Mexico."
Continue? is available on Steam as of this past Friday for $9.99 on Windows, Linux, and Mac, but you can pick it up for $7.99 with the launch sale discount.
Resident Evil: Outbreak and the sequel File #2 can both be played online with other players once again. Capcom had shutdown the servers long ago, but dedicated fans were able to reverse-engineer custom made servers. The catch is that this will only work with the Japanese version of the game as there are no known packet captures of the American and European versions of Outbreak.
So there you go. If you're a diehard Outbreak fan that owns the Japanese version still, have fun. For everyone else, let us reminisce the part with the zombie zoo animals.
Simon Boudreault is the 23-year-old CEO of the Quantic Gaming eSports team, and he owes a lot of people some money The Daily Dot reports. For starters, pro StarCraft II player Ko Hyun has been owed $23,000 in salary and prize money for months now. What's more, numerous people on the Quantic Gaming staff are owed thousands of dollars as well. Upwards to $40,000 is owed to numerous employees.
Simon has dropped off the map since December 17, and no one knows where he is. Shortly before disappearing Simon told people he was going for a biopsy on a lump on his lung. Simon has disappeared for weeks at a time before with no explanation, but this time people aren't expecting him back at all.
The entire situation is downright sad, and Daily Dot's report sheds a lot of light on how things work behind the scenes with the ever growing field of eSports.
This is Episode 111 in a series of reviews of bad video games by the Angry Video Game Nerd. Watch as the Angry Nerd reviews the Game Boy, Genesis & NES versions of the 1992 beat ‘em up game Toxic Crusaders. The Toxic Crusaders box description reads: “Only a complete and helpless nerd like Melvin...
At this point it's a sure thing for me to revisit Istaria, the old-school MMO by Virtrium, every single year. I look forward to it each time even though the game always feels basically the same. I don't want to imply that the game doesn't change at all. In fact, the indie developer team that works to run the game should be proud of the frequency of communications and patches. Around seven patches (large and small) were applied to the game in the month of December alone. On the surface, however, the game largely plays the same way and features the same systems that it always has. That doesn't mean I am familiar with them all or have come anywhere near mastering them all, but it's a comfort to know that the game remains familiar to those who are returning after some time away.
The team added a larger patch in December called Crystalshaper. The game also turned 10 years old, a feat in itself. I thought that now would be a perfect time to take another look at it, and I even ran a livestream of the game, co-hosted by Lead Designer Jason Murdick.
Man, there are few things worse in the gaming world than to see players of other regions get a hold of titles that have yet to make it to your neck of the woods. First comes the flush of jealousy, then the slow burn of envy, then the mountaintop proclamation of vengeance upon the studio in the middle of a rainstorm.
Reader Dynatos is one of the fortunate to be able to try out this particular game: "I've recently stepped back into Blade and Soul with the Chinese release, and while I'm not very far along into the game (it's a little tough when I don't understand the language!), I'm completely in love with the art style and combat mechanics. Here's my Kung Fu master looking at the foreboding building up the walkway -- not very inviting!"
I WILL RAIN HOT DOOM UPON YOU NCSOFT! DOOM! Er, sorry, I just advanced to stage three.
I like to think of myself as a person who covets his time and won't spend it frivolously grinding, but once in a while I fall for it. "It" in this case being a limited-time event in an MMO where a particularly tantalizing reward is dangled in front of me. Common sense will flee and I'll find myself neck-deep in an obsessive grind to get this free goodie.
Neverwinter was the most recent that trapped me. I couldn't help it, you see. There was the promise of a cute little healing fawn companion if I'd only go fishing during the winter event. That sounded pretty doable, that is until I hit hour five of non-stop carp capture and realized that I was in for a real grind marathon to pull this off.
Very long story short, I got the fawn but really wish I hadn't wasted so many hours doing it. That's my story. What's yours?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
To fit the season, Winterstock will take place at the frigid (yet welcoming) Thorin's Gate on the Landroval server from January 17th through the 20th. The four-day event will showcase 19 bands playing in one-hour blocks during the afternoons and evenings for entertainment and amusement. Winterstock could be seen as the counterpart to summer's Weatherstock, which has been going on for years now.
Can't get enough info about sci-fi indie sandbox The Repopulation? Here's a three-hour livestream featuring lead developer Joshua Halls that should quench your thirst, at least for a little while.
The stream boasts a lengthy Q&A session as well as some never-before-seen footage in the form of world fly-throughs. The Repopulation is currently in closed alpha. The devs have also announced a second Kickstarter drive designed to fund additional gameplay features as well as a Greenlight campaign to increase exposure via Steam.
While I had another, happier topic all ready to ring in the new year, SOE surprised us with a questionable decision this week that I felt necessitated an immediate response. So today we'll focus on this hot topic instead: All change is not good. And SOE's announced change in membership benefits for EverQuest IIis really not good.
Previously, with the removal of the remaining free-to-play restrictions, EQII subscribers saw their benefits whittle down to essentially a buff to mount speed and coin, AA, and XP accumulation (basically what was offered during the Gold Rush event) and the monthly 500 Station Cash allotment. While that seems as if players lost most of their advantages for subbing, there wasn't too much murmuring because at least we were happy that our comrades had the freedom to chose the classes and races they wanted and enjoy the game better. And besides, we still had the 500 SC, so we still had some worthwhile benefit. Well, now that's changing.
SOE has decided that this last benefit must be retooled from 500 SC that accumulates until you use it to the ability to buy one single item for up to 2000 SC per month. While it may sound like a better deal on the surface, it's not -- not for SOE or for its customers.
Kiddies will find it tougher to spend money in Blizzard's games, as the studio is expanding its parental controls to include locks on in-game purchases. Blizzard is notifying relevant users of this change via email and on the forums.
Starting January 7th, any Battle.net account with parental controls enabled will automatically prevent users from spending money in World of Warcraft's cash shop, Hearthstone's cash shop, or Diablo III's soon-to-be-closed real-money auction house. Account users will be able to enable those purchases by logging into their account and changing the settings.
As I steadily collect another set of holiday hats for little reason other than an inexplicable need to collect these things (and I'd really like to be able to store my Usagi Kabuto while I'm at it, thanks), it's a fair time to look at the next year for Final Fantasy XIV's development. The game launched well, has made some missteps, and the next year is really going to determine how well it can manage over the long term.
I'm not pretending that I have a picture-perfect roadmap for the game over the next year, but I do think there are some pretty obvious things to be addressed. There are gaps to be filled in, systems that could stand to be improved, and more systems that would have a positive effect on retention and play. So let's look at what the next year will hopefully bring other than equine headpieces.
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Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
