The only major release this week is Capcom’s latest appeal to nostalgia with Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, an action RPG with official D&D flavoring available for download for the Xbox 360. This seemed like a good idea to me. Until I played it. This is a direct port of an arcade brawler from 1993 and its 1996 sequel, both of which hurt my eyes and my game design sensibilities. Who would play this? It’s like having Spin Doctors songs in your iTunes library.
Salem: The crafting MMO, developed by Seatribe will need to look for a new publisher. Paradox Interactive has cut the game loose from their publishing schedule and the game will need to find its own way. Paradox posted the news in the official forums, letting players know that they will have nothing more to do with the game after July 8th.
As we approach the 2,5 year anniversary of the announcement of the game and after nearly a year in Beta, Seatribe and Paradox have taken stock and evaluated both where we are today and what we think the future has in store. Our conclusion is that the game is active and much potential still lies in the game and its community, but that the concept still needs time and development to mature. To ensure longevity of this title and to have a set up that will allow Seatribe to work with this game for many months/years to come we have therefore decided to take some steps to optimize how the game is managed today and the costs of running it.
Effective from July 8, Seatribe will assume full support management and development ownership of Salem: The Crafting MMO. Any decisions taken from that point on will be taken by and communicated through Seatribe to you – the community. Paradox Interactive will start phasing out their involvement in the project from today and on July 8 the game for all intents and purposes will be Seatribe’s to run.
Seatribe plans to continue development of the game while they look for a new publishing path. Salem beta players will receive a 50% discount coupon for the Paradox store and some in-game cash for their trouble.
Before we’d seen Man of Steel, one of us on this podcast predicted that it would be the worst movie we see all summer. Did Zack Snyder, the director of Sucker Punch, live up to this expectation? If you want to avoid Man of Steel spoilers, jump to the 1:09 mark for this week’s 3×3 of our favorite babysitters in movies.
Next week: World War Z
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Diablo III gets it. Torchlight gets it. Marvel Ultimate Alliance gets it. Titan Quest gets it. Borderlands gets it. Path of Exile doesn’t get it. Van Helsing doesn’t get it. Krater doesn’t get it. Dungeon Siege doesn’t get it. Sacred doesn’t get it. Hellgate: London didn’t get it. Try as they might, many RPGs don’t get it, including some of the good ones.
Marvel Heroes totally gets it. Totally.
After the jump, gets what? Continue reading →
Ever wonder what kind of horror movie Mark Duplass would write? Frankly, me either. But the answer to that question is Black Rock, directed by and starring Katie Aselton, who has worked with Duplass in quirky indie comedy fare like The League and Puffy Chair.
It opens with — stop me if you’ve heard this one — three women going camping. They drive a little boat out to an island utterly devoid of anything resembling scenery or likely camping spots. This being a horror movie, there are bad men out here. When it comes time to toughen up and survive, the scenes play out like acting workshop exercises. “Okay ladies, in this scene, you’re a football team getting psyched for the big game. Go!” They even smack each other on the head to show they’re serious. But this stuff is practically Brando compared to the villain, a pale willowy nerd mistakenly cast as a ruthless war-hardened psycho.
The most notable thing about Black Rock is its take on nudity. Plenty of horror movies include pointlessly titillating nudity. It goes with the territory. Black Rock takes a briefly courageous approach, but quickly turns timid. The actresses put their clothes back on and you’re back to watching a typical horror movie. It all ends in a ridiculous rough-and-tumble finale with all the brutality of a pillow fight, but with bad bruise make-up and a little fake blood.
Black Rock is available on video on demand. Support Qt3 by watching it on Amazon.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew-4x6_b0Hs
There are a couple of reasons I’m predisposed to follow World of Diving, an underwater exploration game from an independent Dutch studio crowdsourcing its development (Indiegogo link here and Steam Greenlight link here).
The first is that I’m an erstwhile diver myself (if you haven’t actually been in the water in the last, say, two years, you can’t call yourself a diver in the present tense; scuba diving is as unnatural as space exploration and it takes acclimation, no matter how much experience you have). So I love the idea of a moderately serious simulation in a procedurally generated underwater world. In the above video, I was sold when the divers gave each other the “okay” sign rather than talking over mysterious microphones in their mouthpieces.
But the main reason I’ll be following this game is that there are too few like it. Nintendo’s Endless Ocean games for the Wii were a bit too gamey, as befits games published by Nintendo. Most of you have never even heard of the golden standard for this tiny genre. Aquanaut’s Holiday, for the original Playstion, came out in 1995. It was a simultaneously confounding and relaxing game, from a time when there was no such thing as a first-person open-world sandbox. As I should have guessed from the title, Aquanaut’s Holiday had no game structure: no quests, no goals, no danger. I swam around in vain searching for something like a shark or a giant squid. What sort of underwater videogame doesn’t have a shark or a giant squid? I’m not sure I ever figured out that the only thing that passed for gameplay was a coral reef endgame in which you built a home for fish. The developer of Aquanaut’s Holiday went on to make another confounding and relaxing game called Tail of the Sun, which is arguably a precursor to games like Minecraft and Don’t Starve.
Unfortunately, World of Diving is also an online game. Here’s where the promise of procedurally generated underwater exploration starts to look like something else:
Starting out in the Caribbean, World of Diving recreates and brings to life the world of wonder and discovery that is at the bottom of the ocean, where you will be hang out with friends — whether you have met them in or outside of the game — and can dive with the sea turtles, hunt for the great white shark, and party on your own luxury yachts.
tank lfg 4 GWS quest
Military troops are just like civilians. They use videogames to relax and compete with each other while overseas or on active deployment. In the few days since Microsoft clarified some of their restrictive policies for the Xbox One, some military personnel have made their thoughts clear on the matter. They don’t like it. Because the Xbox One must phone home at least once every 24 hours, or any time a game needs to be authenticated, it’s going to be difficult to use while deployed to areas with unreliable internet connections, like some barracks or on ships. Additionally, the Xbox One is restricted for use in only the areas of the world listed in the officially supported countries leaving out whole military bases.
The Army Times asked Microsoft about workarounds to these policies for service members, but the response was unhelpful.
“I don’t have additional details to share and can’t speculate on workarounds at this time,” wrote Xbox rep Danica Stickel in an emailed response to questions, repeating the suggestion that troops could just use the 360 instead.
“Although we’re very excited about Xbox One, we remain dedicated to Xbox 360 now and for years to come. In fact, we are expecting some of the greatest blockbusters of 2013 and 2014 to come out on Xbox 360.”
Stickel advised The Army Times that there is good news for the troops. Since their Xbox One content is tied to their Live account, as long as they activate a game in their home country, they’ll be able to play it anywhere afterwards. Of course, this presumes that the player can connect the Xbox One to the internet every 24 hours after activating the content.
You can usually tell early on when a no-budget movie is going to be a waste of time. It’s clear early on this isn’t the case with Resolution, which has a deliciously creepy slow-burn script, a confident style by co-directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, and two appealing leads. Vinny Curran is a gloriously bearded redneck junkie and Peter Cilella is the friend who single-handedly conducts his intervention. Curran has the showier role and he’s in over his head at times. But Cilella is particularly good as the exasperated straight man, with all of Greg Kinnear’s appeal and none of the smirk. And most importantly, they’ve got the kind of chemistry to make what they’re doing believable.
The intervention angle is mostly a set-up to get these two guys to linger for a few day in one of those cabins in the woods that you might see in movies such as, well, The Cabin in the Woods. To imply there’s anything meta going on could be a spoiler. Suffice to say Justin Benson’s script is no stranger to Cache, one of Michael Haneke’s finest, most intricate, and most infuriatingly elusive movies. Resolution manages to do far more with things that go bump against the camera than any mere special effects. And once the ending rolls around, there’s no denying this is a movie that has earned its title.
And hey, look, they even got Bill Oberst Jr.!
Resolution is available for video on demand. Support Qt3 by watching it on Amazon.com.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from CD Projekt Red was one of the games shown on Microsoft’s stage during their pre-E3 presentation. It’s a next-gen open-world extravaganza of witching, so it made sense that it was one of the games touted as being extra awesome on the Xbox One thanks to Kinect-enabled voice commands and the “power of the cloud.”
What struck a few fans as odd was just the fact that a famously anti-DRM developer like CD Projekt Red would even strike up a deal with Microsoft for their notoriously restrictive Xbox One console. CDP co-founder Marcin Iwiński told Eurogamer right after the conference that they didn’t have full details of the console DRM policy.
“We have not received anything from Microsoft until today on this one and, before we form any definite opinions here, we would like to have this process explained in details by the platform holder.
“From our side, we will be of course looking for the most gamer friendly solution.”
Iwiński later clarified that they didn’t want to “punish” Xbox One gamers and that ultimately “it’s the clients who make the final decision.”
Another puzzling aspect to the relationship is the fact that the Xbox One will not actually work in CDP’s native Poland at launch according to an official list of supported countries. Iwiński told Game Informer that he was taken by surprise by the console not working in his country.
“I was just in a restaurant and saw the list,” Iwinski told us. “I was surprised, and I really hope that it isn’t final. I think Polish gamers will speak out loud. From my perspective, it’s a sad situation.”
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be available DRM-free to PC gamers at GOG.com in 2014.
Gaming sure seems to have its fair share of legal disputes. This time, it’s Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms filing a lawsuit against Gearbox over $2 million in unpaid royalties and advances for Duke Nukem Forever. Evidence cited in the Texas court filing include emails sent to 3D Realms’ George Broussard and Scott Miller from Gearbox president Randy Pitchford allegedly agreeing to the terms of the deal.
“Even in the worst case, I am prepared to make sure that debt is repaid in exchange for the opportunity to drive the brand forward and generate profit through the development of the big ticket Duke Nukem video games for many years to come.”
Although Gearbox has not formally filed a response, they did supply Kotaku with a statement.
“Ironically, Scott Miller himself provided the best response when he wrote: ‘… filed lawsuits are entirely one-sided statements, based on knee-deep BS and with more spin than a top.'”
One of the things that Microsoft got right with their Xbox 360 system is the little popup and sound of getting an Achievement. Love them or hate them, that indicator is a direct ping to the human need for immediate positive feedback. The Xbox One will change the Achievement system a bit. Major Nelson and Cierra McDonald, the Xbox Live Achievement Service Program Director, explained some of the details.
The new system will have Achievements and Challenges. Achievements will work much like they do now. Games will come with a list of goals that you can complete in-game to get the Pavlovian ding and some points added to your Gamerscore. You can attempt to fulfill an Achievement at any time because they don’t officially expire. (Ha! Just try to get those multiplayer Achievements for Perfect Dark Zero now!) The new wrinkle is that Xbox One programs outside of games, like music and video apps, can also have Achievements. App-based Achievements will not have Gamerscore points.
Challenges are new. They are time-limited. Developers and publishers can add or subtract them at will, like a weekend event challenge, or a themed goal based on a hot new internet meme. Challenges can’t have Gamerscore, but they can unlock other rewards.
– Challenges are time based.
– Challenges do not give out Gamerscore.
– Challenges may cross titles, but achievements cannot.
– Challenges can be unlocked by the community.
An Achievement activity feed will also be a part of the Xbox One Dashboard to keep you up to date on what your friends are accomplishing and what new Challenges are being offered.
The Last of Us is the most emotionally resonant game you will ever play about plank, ladder, and pallet management. To be fair you’ll sometimes scooch dumpsters around. At one point, you scooch a piano.
After the jump, are there crates? Continue reading →
Everyone knows Jean Grey died after being possessed by Apocalypse. What Marvel Heroes presupposes is maybe she didn’t. We discuss whether Marvel’s superheroes are suited to a free-to-play Diablo style action RPG called Marvel Heroes. Is it good? Does it cost too much? Is there enough variety? What is the endgame? And when can we play as Batman? We also consider games of the week, which include iOS titles Puzzle & Dragons and Agricola, but not The Last of Us.
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Telltale’s The Walking Dead game was a hit with the zombie point & click adventure game crowd, and the folks that like making emotional attachments to various flawed characters and seeing them die. The upcoming 400 Days DLC promises to continue presenting those difficult choices that players love to hate.
The DLC will take place in and around a truck stop near the events of Season 1, but will feature five separate characters’ stories in their own mini-episodes. Telltale says “this is not Lee or Clem’s story.” 400 days promises to make decisions meaningful for players.
400 Days will check to see if you have a Season 1 save file. The decisions you made in Season 1 will have an effect on your 400 Days experience. And yes…choices made in 400 Days will resonate in
Season 2.
400 Days will launch in July for XBLA, PSN, Steam, and iOS for $5. The PS Vita version will be bundled with all of Season 1 in a new package.
Microsoft’s Xbox One has a built-in DRM feature that makes freely lending or reselling games impossible at this point. You need to go through some kind of verification system and you can only resell your used disc-based games through participating retailers. Sony’s PS4 maintains the status quo of this generation’s rules. As illustrated in a tongue-in-cheek instructional video, you own the game so do what you want with it. Sony representatives did clarify that third-party publishers will be able to set up whatever rules they want – just like they can currently.
Electronic Arts is one of the publishers faced with these different rules and according to chief operating officer Peter Moore, they don’t yet know what they will do. Moore spoke to Polygon about the internal debates they are having.
“We’re focused at this point in time in new games and our official position is, ‘I’ll get back to you’. Sony have announced what they are going to do which is, y’know, business as usual, and then Microsoft are looking at allowing a publisher to opt-in, should they choose to do so. But if we opt in, do [Microsoft] charge a fee, and if so, how much? We have not internally even begun to sit down and answer those questions.
We will figure out what we need to do. I’m not trying to back-pedal but this thing just happened and we need to reconvene and hear what people think and talk to our retail partners and our first party partners. We had no idea what Sony was going to announce. We’ll reconvene next week and figure it all out.”
On the subject of whether or not EA had pressured Sony or Microsoft to build DRM features into their next-gen consoles, Moore denied the rumor. He also reiterated that the Online Pass program was cancelled because consumers made it clear they didn’t like it.
