[Ed. note: Our man in the war with the Cylons, Wendelius, has jumped into the Battlestar Galactica Online beta. It’s a free-to-play, browser-based MMO. Ew, right? Maybe not. Read on.]
See the Undock button…? Once you are in a space station, you will be eager to press it. BGO is like an ugly duckling: all ungainly and clumsy in space stations, but quite graceful and much more fun to watch in space.
The stations do serve a purpose though. That’s where you get to sell the scraps you have collected in space and to buy and equip additional ship parts, weapons and ammo. It’s also where Adama Jr will give you daily missions to complete for more XP and rewards.
Read the initial impressions here and try the game yourself here.
The caption for that Dungeon Siege III screenshot, which was just released today, is “Uhh, stuff happens”.
That’s pretty much what you get when you tap the screenshot button at some random moment in an effects-heavy action game. If you look closely at that screenshot, you’ll see, like, gnomes or goblins among whatever spell is popping off. Summon Orange, I think it’s called.
I’m really looking forward to Dungeon Siege III, which will be out on May 31. Certainly not because of these screens or this trailer. In fact, in spite of them. The appeal of Dungeon Siege III for me is that I want to find out what’s next from the developer of Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas. Where do you go from there?
After the jump, a few more glimpses at where you go from thereContinue reading →
I tumbled down the rabbit-hole with Magic the Gathering Tactics, and like Alice I’ve run into some wonderful things, and also some unpleasant ones. It’s a game with a number of rough edges that costs too much, needs more cards, and likely has balance issues, yet I found myself playing it day after day and thinking about it when I wasn’t playing it. Richard Garfield should be flogged for inventing the collectible card game.
Eco-Thecno factory’s inside run race. Or as I like to call it, the Chatty Cathy Level. The little characters in this level have plenty to say to me, warning me of danger and being surprised I got so far. I’m pressing the circle button like crazy and still the danger guy won’t shut up, repeating his warning in another language. One of the characters eventually tells her little friend to shut up. Thanks. But don’t bother. You’re just adding to the text noise and reaction time is a factor here. You’d think that these little dudes would chill now that I’ve reached double-digits in replaying. But no. They chatter on uselessly every time. They get on my nerves so. Or they did. Until I found…
Flame hat. Oh flame hat, how I love thee. I didn’t even know what you were at first. You just glommed onto my head at a save point. Took me several deaths to figure you out. But now, oh now how I wish I could take you out into the world. Because sometimes I need to set something on fire over there, but I’m way too far away to get the job done.
Oh well, I’ll just have to be content with our time together here in Eco-Thecno blah blah blah. Don’t worry. I’ll return. Since you helped me off one of those Chatty Cathies with a sliding electified platform–it was an accident, I swear–I’m forever in your debt. Plus, now that my zero first-place score has been knocked off, you can bet I’ll be back.
Hey, it’s a new Call of Juarez game from developer Techland and publisher Ubisoft! The success of Red Dead Redemption must mean the Old West the new hotness. Let’s see what the press release says in advance of EGM’s upcoming cover story:
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is set in present day and brings the best elements of the Wild West to a new and modern setting. As a first person shooter with an immersive and mature story, players can expect to embark on a journey like no other — one that will take them from the heart of modern day Los Angeles, California to Juarez, Mexico.
Just five more sections to play and I’ll have finished Lost Planet 2 on hard, which unlocks the insane difficulty level. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how easy it is to get co-op games going. I just boot up the level I need to play, and within a few minutes, other players have joined. More than six months after its release, could it be that Lost Planet 2 still has a thriving co-op community? It certainly looks like it.
One of the great things about co-op games is that you can see the weapons you haven’t unlocked when other players use them. While working my way down into the undersea base yesterday, another player was chucking some sort of black hole grenades. I want those! I wonder if he felt the same way about my flamethrower. Ultimately, we’re all here for the unlockables, whether it’s weapons from the slot machine or customizable character bits from leveling up the different factions.
I only recently discovered that some of the training stages aren’t just timed obstacle courses. Lost Planet 2 actually has the equivalent of multiplayer matches against bots, which is a great way to try out new weapons without having to play an entire campaign level. Over six months of championing this game and I had no idea that was in there.
Lost Planet 2’s biggest failing is that you probably have no idea how awesome it is.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 developer Eden has the laid-back caRPG thing down pat, but can they figure out a decent driving model this time? Will Dungeons be a worthy successor to Dungeon Keeper, or will it be another one of those clunky strategy games made by Germans for Germans? These are the pressing questions facing you and your wallet this week.
James Cameron does it again! What exactly is “it”? Listen to our Sanctum podcast and find out. Or fast forward to the 1:03 mark for this week’s 3×3. We talk about our favorite hiding places in movies.
The problem with that screenshot from my latest level, Punkteparadies, is that it really doesn’t give a proper sense of the speed of the moment. This was my first time driving a vehicle in LBP2. That thing took off like a shot. I had no idea I was in for that kind of speed. But then again, I have no idea what I’m in for in most of these community levels. Because often the directions for said levels are like the following,
Hohe Geschwindigkeit, grosse Hohen und viel Punke. Das findest du alles hier. Wunsche viel Spass!
One of the people I live with happens to know German, having lived there, but she wasn’t home. She would eventually tell me the blurb was talking about great heights and far points or something, but left to my own devices I just decided I was supposed to shoot the glass. When no glass presented itself, I drove that truck. I went straight up a mountainy point–that would be the great height–and got launched into the air. Falling. Falling. Falling. Crushed by truck.
The speed though. Nice. Also I got my 4,000 community bubbles pin in this one. So it worked out.
Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat reports that League of Legends is, like the American economy, now arguably Chinese. Chinese internet company Tencent has acquired a majority stake in Riot Games, which owns and operates League of Legends. The investment is just north of $350 million.
The deal is another validation of the social game business, which is one of the hottest sectors for user growth and acquisitions. And it shows that big international players such as the Chinese internet giant are moving in on the fast-growing market for social games in the U.S.
I love how Takahashi calls League “the video game equivalent of a pick-up basketball game”. As a guy who’s never been involved in a pick-up basketball game, I now understand basketball a little more. Is there a death recap in basketball?
According to the Internets, a sports game called Madden 11 has run a simulation of Sunday’s upcoming big game, Super Bowl XLV (thanks Romans!). In that simulation, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-20. Apparently the folks at Madden do this every year, with great success:
EA Sports has been using Madden to predict the Super Bowl winner for years now, and the famed football franchise is proving eerily good at it. Not only has Madden correctly picked six of the last seven winners, it’s actually been quite close on the final scores in a few of them.
That particular article, from Yahoo! Games, also reveals that the simulation predicts the game’s MVP. Spoiler alert…it’s Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace? That guy has to be in his nineties. Talk about getting it done! Eat it, Andy Rooney.
So we can all relax and hit the movies on Sunday. Unless Green Bay’s phenomenal quarterback, Aaron Rodgers (pictured), has something to say about it. Wait, the game is inside? Oops. I’m thinking he will.
Activision provided the above graphic to demonstrate, well, I’m not exactly sure what. That everybody loves the FAMAS? That the priority for perk loadouts is being able to run around willy nilly? That n00bs everywhere are using the remote controlled car to get kills? That I’ve made the right choice by uninstalling Black Ops?
The intended effect of this Darkspore trailer is to make you sign up for the beta. EA loves it when you sign up for stuff. Instead, it made me want to play Alien Swarm, League of Legends, or DC Universe, all great ways to meet your group-with-other-people-and-beat-up-stuff-to-level-up needs.
All you have to do to get into the multiplayer beta for Dawn of War II: Retribution is to register on the community site. This will let you try out the all-new Imperial Guard, who seem to be in over their heads. I get the impression that the dudes from Company of Heroes were transplanted into the Warhammer 40,000 A.D. universe, where they set up their turrets and barricades and — holy crap, what the heck are those things, because we’re gonna need a bigger tank? Pictured.
The beta also lets you play the other races with their new toys. I’m quite fond of a new Tyranid beetle that has a heck of time keeping up with its spry leaping companions, but can hunker down to heal himself up between fights.
This should be a pretty dramatic time for Dawn of War II. For hardcore players, Relic and balance have never been on very friendly terms. But for the rest of us, this is one of the most generous RTS sandboxes you can play in. Get the multiplayer beta here while the gettin’s good.
I have decided to let the game decide which of these community levels I’m going to try. You can do this using a feature in the LBP2 Community area called “Lucky Dip”. I’m not going to try to sort based on what the community thinks is hot, or look for specific subjects. I’m going on a roll of the dice here. I’ve been called a “braver man” for doing this.
That’s how I wound up playing DOOM 333. DOOM 333 is an exceedingly simple little level. That’s me up there in that picture, about to fall headfirst onto a jump pad. It’s basically all jumping and running, and it’s very quick. I was a little put off by it, actually, because there’s nothing to it. You get a couple goodies, go through a gate, and then jump over some giant things. That’s it. I was about to leave it behind and try another Lucky Dip when I saw that I was in second place on the scoreboard. Yes, second out of two. But still second. So…I played again. And again. And again. Now I’m in first, a position I’ve held for almost a day. With at least three other sack creatures trailing me. I like being first.
