It’s been 37 years since Atari made a blocky ball bounce from a paddle to a wall of blocks. Pull up Google Image Search, type in “Atari Breakout” and get ready to waste some time.
Coincidently, (or perhaps not) Google I/O 2013 will be starting tomorrow in San Francisco. The event will showcase what Google has been up to for the past year. The event announcements are rumored to include a push into gaming with something called Google Game Center. This will likely be aimed at creating an unified achievement and matchmaking system in the Google Play ecosystem much like the service already present on iOS.
RIFT is changing to a free-to-play model on June 12th. Rumors had been swirling around Trion World’s MMO for months, but now it’s official. You’ll be able to download and play RIFT without spending a dime as soon as the Empyreal Assault update rolls out.
All players will be able to explore the entire world of Telara for free and will have access to the expanded in-game RIFT Store where a variety of services – mounts, boosts, wardrobe items, and more – will be available for purchase. An optional subscription will still be available that grants a slew of “Patron” benefits and bonuses to maximize the RIFT experience. Trion will celebrate its current and previous subscribers with loyalty and currency rewards for their time spent playing RIFT thus far.
Owners of the original paid client will get additional loot bags and character slots over the regular F2P players. Owners of Storm Legion will unlock the expansion Souls (Harbinger, Tempest, Tactician, and Defiler) on their account permanently.
Twitch, the gaming streaming service, is getting an app for Xbox Live today. Now you can stream StarCraft II onto your TV and trick your friends into thinking you’ve somehow gotten a console port of the game! The Twitch blog notes that the app will only include access to the top 300 channels and will only be available for Gold subscribers. The good news is that it’s Kinect enabled! Wait until your friends see you waving your hands around like a maniac while League of Legends plays on the big screen! You’ll be the hit of the party.
Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb posted that Twitch will get an exclusive broadcast on May 21st after the Xbox press event.
The app will be available to download later today.
