This week’s Qt3 Games Podcast comes to you from the distant future! Jason, Nick and Vickie discuss games we’re looking forward to in the year 2013, games we’re currently enjoying in the year 2013 and news we’re currently news…ing? You get the point.
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Electronic Arts is discontinuing the Online Pass program. GamesBeat reports that EA is doing away with the program entirely due to negative feedback.
“Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”
“Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format,” Reseburg said. “We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”
The Online Pass system was controversial because it required gamers pay an extra fee to access multiplayer features of games previously owned by another consumer.
In their neverending quest to destroy gamers’ lives and wallets, Valve has introduced Steam Trading Cards. Cards are gained by playing games, or trading with fellow players. Once earned, cards can be crafted into badges. Badges can earn XP, contributing to your overall Steam Level, and be turned in for in-game rewards.
The end is nigh.
You want cars? We got cars! Sony announced that Gran Turismo 6 will be available for the PS3 by the holidays. All the stuff from GT5 will return with additional cars and tracks putting the automobile count over 1200! That’s a lot of car collecting.
New features include an include course-maker function, GPS data, and a new physics engine. A new user interface will allow players to extend some of the gameplay and community features to smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
“It is amazing to think that it is 15 years since we first released Gran Turismo,” said Kazunori Yamauchi, during the announcement at Silverstone Circuit. “Things have changed a lot since then and now Gran Turismo 6 is a further evolution of my dream. We’re pleased to deliver GT 6 to PlayStation 3 as we have a very loyal community on that platform. However, we have refactored the game to make it very flexible and expandable, with a view to making many future developments.”
A demo release on PS3 is planned for July.
Warner Brothers Interactive announced Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. The 5th Cell developed game will feature Maxwell and his sister Lily in the comic universe spelling out solutions to puzzles with the help of over 2000 licensed DC superheroes.
Speaking to Polygon, senior producer Caleb Arseneaux said that even Scribblenauts vets will find surprises in the game.
“So when you play Scribblenauts for the first time and you spawn a cat, that’s usually when people are like, ‘Oh my god, this game has a cat! That’s awesome!’ Then you type in dog, and the dog appears and starts chasing the cat,” he said. “In Unmasked, we have a Red Lantern that is a cat – Dex-Starr – so if you spawn a dog, and then you spawn a cat, Dex-Starr will appear, and when the dog tries to chase him, he’ll beat up the dog.”
There’s no word on what will happen if you type “keyboard cat” into Maxwell’s notebook in this game.
Per the official site, EA is working on a mobile version of its in-house graphics engine called Frostbite Go.
One of our most exciting current projects is called Frostbite Go, a mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite’s proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.
Despite the engine being devoloped to scale down to the mobile platforms, it appears the Wii U is still out of luck. The site notes elsewhere that “diverse targets from XBOX360 and PlayStation 4 to iOS and Android” are supported. EA and DICE have said that the absence of upcoming Wii U versions of Frostbite games was due to technical difficulties in porting the games over to the less robust hardware. As late as last week, DICE technical director Johan Andersson tweeted that they were not able to get the Frostbite engine running on Nintendo’s Wii U hardware which was the reason why they abandoned that effort.
With at least 15 games on EA’s schedule slated to use Frostbite, the Wii U could be left out of many EA games.
