Oliver can take part in combat directly, but the majority of the beastie stomping in Ni No Kuni is done via familiars. Familiars are borne of any living thing with a heart, but a heart in the metaphysical, feel-good-summer-of-love sense of the word, not just the literal, beating thing. At the beginning of the game, Oliver gains all of his familiars as story beats but soon Esther can sing songs to serenade creatures who have become so impressed with the beating they just received that they want to join the fun as a familiar. Think Pokemon but without the dog-fighting feel.
I haven’t played the Skylanders money-printing factory, but the resident Qt3 authority on the subject speaks highly of it. And I can’t help but admire the immense kid appeal every time I see the displays in a Gamestop. The idea is that the game comes with a stand that you plug into your console system. When you play the game, you play with whatever figures (mostly sold separately) are physically placed on the stand.
So I can only imagine how much Disney is going to clean up with their own Skylanders, which comes out this Sunday. It’s aptly named Disney Infinity, which seems appropriate given the wealth of characters available from all things Disney and its extended family at Marvel, Star Wars, and ABC. Power Rangers, Ty Burrell from Modern Family, Sandra Oh from Grey’s Anatomy, Hurley from Lost. The possibilities are — dare I say? — infinite.
So when I was last at Gamestop, I asked the dude at the counter about the Disney Infinity figures available at launch. He referred me to a display with a sad little collection consisting of three Pixar properties (The Incredibles, Cars, Monsters Inc) and two Bruckheimer movies (The Lone Ranger and Pirates of the Caribbean). Really, Disney? That’s how you’re leading? Not even a lowly Boba Fett, Wolverine, or Donald Duck?
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will launch on September 10th for PCs everywhere according to the developer TheChineseRoom. The first-person panic simulator is guaranteed to result in many videos of people squealing, crying, cursing, and closing their eyes in fear while trying to navigate the horror-filled butcher’s playground, if it holds up to the previous entry’s level of tension. There are lots of videos showing people in various states of terror while playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Just check out this poor guy. He sounds like how I felt during my first playthrough.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is already up for pre-purchase on GOG.com, Desura, and Steam for $15.99.
That’s the trailer for Blizzard’s newest content and balance patch for World of Warcraft. It’s called Siege of Ogrimmar and it’s available for testing before the general rollout. The longtime leader of the orcs, Garrosh Hellscream, has gone insane and wants to create a new Horde from demonic agents. It’s a convenient excuse to set up all sorts of new shifted alliances and encounters, but the really interesting bit is the new area dubbed the Timeless Isle.
The Timeless Isle is filled with rare spawns, rare Elites, chests containing epic loot, and events that are all highly rewarding. When you find yourself in close proximity to any of these, you’ll see them pop up on your minimap, denoting their location and event type. Some won’t be simple to get to or easy to find, as many parts of the island are entangled with puzzles lost to time. Some involve more than a simple alert…but we’re not going to spoil the surprises, and we’re really looking forward to see how quickly players can unlock the island’s mysteries and hidden treasures.
Dynamic events that pop up as you get near? That sounds familiar.
Since Paradox no longer includes Quarter to Three in their first round of review copies — they’re one of the many folks unhappy with our ratings system and given how most other sites limit themselves to the usual 7-9 ratings, who can blame them? — I’m only just now getting started with Europa Universalis IV. Which means reading the manual, dinking around with the tutorials, booting up a game as Austria and admiring the map but chickening out and then booting up another game as Venice and then chickening out again and considering some more remote corner of the world like Poland. Wait, no. What was I thinking? The Aztecs. Still too many potentially dangerous neighbors. Maybe the Incas.
One of my favorite things I’ve read in the manual is this: “Iron man mode is the only time when Steam Achievements are active.” Iron man mode means that you can’t save the game, see how your war against Burgundy goes, and then reload the game to take a year to build a bigger army if it goes poorly. Iron man mode means you only get a single save when you exit the game, and it’s saved on the Steam cloud, so you can’t spirit away the file someplace safe and load it later to redo your disastrous attack on Burgundy. Iron man mode means only a monthly autosave, so if you want to kill the game from the task manager and pretend it crashed, you can never go back more than a couple of weeks. It simply means you can’t call do-overs or takebacks. It means your decisions matter in a way they don’t matter when you can freely save and reload.
Iron man mode uniquely fits Paradox’s strategy games, which aren’t about prevailing over everyone else, like most strategy games. A Paradox game is about surfing history, riding waves of data, cresting its peaks and sliding helplessly down into its valleys, taking it in stride when it sucks you underwater and spits you up on the beach sputtering and hobbled. History isn’t a linear progression up a power curve to the number one spot. It’s about ebbs and flows. And if you want to be an achievement whore — you do want to be an achievement whore, don’t you? — Europa Universalis IV expects you to ride those waves, come what may.
A good video is usually worth a thousand words. But sometimes the words are pretty nifty, too. So here is the announcement for Foul Play:
Playing as the Victorian daemon-hunter Baron Dashforth, prepare to smash, strike, banish and beat your way through hordes of wildly costumed extras as you recount your incredible life story live on stage — watch awe-inspiring scene changes play out before your eyes, fires will rage, pyramids will rise, castles will crumble, and deadly monstrosities will burst forth… NO expense has been spared in bringing this scarcely believable, but ENTIRELY ACCURATE story to the stage.
THRILL the baying audience with your incredible presence! Perform shattering takedowns, throws and reversals so perfect you’d swear they were choreographed backstage. String together awesome attacks as the Baron, or have a friend join as your loyal companion Scampwick. Electrify the spectators with linked and special attacks — win the audience with flair and showmanship, and use every stage-trick you know to bring the house down.
Prepare for DRAMA as the Baron’s tale unfolds, from the harsh deserts of Cairo, to the shady streets of Victorian London… and beyond. The finest actors and actresses of the day have been employed to ensure the ABSOLUTE authenticity of the story. Prepare to play out the most spectacular and explosive moments of the Baron’s life; improbable beasts, astonishing villainy, and at the heart of it all — the mysterious Foul Play.
A vaudevillian tale of daemons, disaster, deadly risks and duplicitous dealings two-player online co-op with special team takedowns and linking attacks crowd-pleasing battles, where style matters above all.
The show opens on September 18th for the PC and Xbox 360.
News comes via Microsoft’s official Games for Windows LIVE Facebook page that the PC Marketplace will be shutting down on August 22nd.
As part of the upcoming Xbox 360 system update, Microsoft Points will be retired, and the Xbox.com PC marketplace will be closed as of August 22, 2013. We encourage you to spend your Microsoft Points balance prior to this change. Although you will not be able to purchase new games, you can continue to enjoy previously purchased content by downloading them through the Games for Windows LIVE client software as usual.
The post contains a link to a FAQ that will explain some details of the shutdown, but the link isn’t working yet.
Microsoft launched Games For Windows LIVE in 2007, but it was highly unpopular with PC gamers on release because it required an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play in multiplayer games. This requirement was quickly removed, but the service never really recovered, and it was always lacking in features and sales that competitors like Steam offered with less technical issues.
Jason Holtman, former head of Valve’s Steam service, has taken a position at Microsoft. According to GamesIndustry International, the position is one that could have a positive impact on Microsoft’s PC gaming efforts.
“Yes, I have joined Microsoft where I will be focusing on making Windows a great platform for gaming and interactive entertainment. I think there is a lot of opportunity for Microsoft to deliver the games and entertainment customers want and to work with developers to make that happen, so I’m excited to be here.”
Holtman was with Valve for eight years, during which time he was credited with growing Steam into the juggernaut it is today. He was the driving force behind the service courting first big publishers, then indies, and he provided leadership throughout his tenure. Holtman reportedly left Valve in February of his own volition during the company’s mysterious culling of employees.
This week, Josh Bycer, Tom Chick, Rob Harvey, and Jason McMaster are up to no good in Payday 2. Find out who sucks at making meth, who got lost in the apartments, who broke his legs wearing a monkey mask, who got burned up in a bus, and who is the master of the Payday 2 quiz.
It’s a new Call of Duty multiplayer video! Guns, perks, and lots of text popping up in your face! This time around, it appears Call of Duty: Ghosts will let players customize their characters instead of just being stuck with a few archetype looks. Also, there are dogs with vests, leaning around corners, and a surprise at the end of the video.
Quarter to Three would like to welcome the menacingly elegant Charles Dance to the world of videogame voiceover. CD Projekt Red announced Dance will lend his mellifluously arch tones to an emperor in The Witcher 3.
Daniel Day-Lewis, you can only hold out for so long.
CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher series of action roleplaying games thrives on giving the player morally ambiguous situations to deal with. Geralt of Rivia operates in a gritty world of monsters, corrupt merchants, overzealous clergy, and not-so-innocent peasants. Even though this video seems to depict a more clear-cut choice, I’d bet anything that if this scenario pops up in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it will have a consequence later in the game that may make the player regret rescuing the maiden.
One of the biggest trends to hit gaming in years is the concept of free-to-play (or F2P if you’re hip and like acronyms). You download the game for free and then have the option of paying for some bonus or another or using an often pared-down version of the game. I’ve spent a good bit of time with a handful of these titles over the last few months and have taken away mixed feelings about the whole concept. Let’s take a look at a few of these titles.
After the jump, I choose you, Pikachu… or I would if you weren’t five bucksContinue reading →
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare has been updated to add more character customization. Content Update 2 from Torn Banner Studios adds new helmets and crests, tabard and shield patterns, and you can make your warrior fabulous for Fall with a bright orange ensemble. Miscellaneous balance changes also come with the update, but you won’t care if your spear stab takes a bit longer when you’re sporting a bright lime green getup.
Chivalry has sold more than 1.2 million copies since its launch in October of last year.
Pick-up groups are a sometimes harsh reality of Payday. But the irony of the above screenshot is that the guy turned out to be really nice. He bumbled around the nightclub a bit while me and the other two guys chatted at him to get the last bag of money. Jerk, get the last bag of money, we typed. Someone finally spoke into voice chat. “Jerk, go upstairs and get the last bag of money”. At that point, a fella is just as likely to drop out of the game as he is to go upstairs and get the last bag of money. Fortunately, Jerk went upstairs and got the last bag of money. Then, in the post-game lobby, he thanked us for our patience and explained that he was “so fuckin high”.
