PopCap has announced that Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time will be launching on the iOS App Store on July 18th. The long-awaited sequel will be entirely free-to-play. PopCap says the “vast majority” of content will be available for no charge but players will be able to purchase upgrades and other in-game items.
Designed from the ground up as a live service, the ever-expanding universe of Plants vs. Zombies 2 continues the epic struggle of plants defending your brainz against zombies from your backyard through the vast reaches of time, both past and future. New worlds with new levels, plants, zombies and new ways to play will be released on an ongoing basis. Leveraging the touch interface of Apple’s popular mobile devices, Plants vs. Zombies 2 includes all-new touch-screen power-ups that enable players to “break the fourth wall” and interact with zombies directly, as well as via plant defenses.
The game is “exclusively” for iOS at launch according to PopCap. There is no word on whether or not there will be PC or Android versions of the game coming later.
This week Capcom releases Remember Me, a sci-fi adventure game in which the main character climbs around a lot (“Can we appeal to the Tomb Raider crowd?”), gets in fistfights (“Can we appeal to the Arkham City crowd?”), and manipulates memories (“Oh, right, we have to fit the central conceit into the game somehow…”). It begins with an interesting aesthetic, but once you escape from the laboratory and climb out of the sewers, you come to that moment when the music swells and a sweeping vista of the amazing sci-fi city stretches before you. My reaction to that moment in Remember Me was, “Really? That’s all you got?” Any further curiosity about the world or the gameplay pretty much dimmed once I got hung up on the first puzzle, which involves watching a doctor give medication to someone over and over again. Basically, these are puzzles about fast-forwarding and rewinding through cutscenes while you guess at whatever obscure solution the developers have in mind. If you really want to play an adventure game, I’m sure someone other than me could recommend a good one.
Also out this week is new DLC for Sins of a Solar Empire, a fantastic RTS that’s no less fantastic for its ongoing touch of feature bloat. Every time I play, there are about six or seven cool things that I know I’m probably not going to touch this time. Whether it’s mines, starbases, titans, some of the cruisers, superweapons, artifacts, inter-imperial pacts, refineries, or cultural boundaries, there are far too many nifty features for any single play sessions. Consider the trade port subgame. You might not even know it exists. But if you string together an unbroken line of trade ports, you get an income bonus. So you don’t just want that dwarf planet because your people need a place to live. You want it because it will extend your trade route by one system. Spacerailroad Tycoon in my RTS. The $5 Forbidden Worlds add-on will lets you further tweak planets, and it will add news planets, bonuses, and technologies.
A possible release this week is State of Decay. It’s in certification at Microsoft, and if all goes well, it will be included in Wednesday’s Xbox Live Arcade releases. Why should you care? Because of all the genres that need more games, single-player open-world zombie survival games need more games the most. Besides, I haven’t headshotted a zombie since dinking around with Resident Evil: Revelations a few weeks agao. I’m starting to go into withdrawal.
Finally, I wouldn’t normally care one whit about a free-to-play action RPG/MMO. But given that Marvel Ultimate Alliance is one of my perennial “you know, I should go back and play that yet again…” games, I’m actually looking forward to the free-to-play action RPG/MMO Marvel Heroes. The early launch this weekend has apparently been beset by problems — the PR rep sheepishly slinked away after last Thursday’s “hey, do you want early access to Marvel Heroes?” email — but whenever its issues get ironed out, I’m looking forward to getting my Jean Grey on. That right, Jean Grey. That’s how I roll.
Sony PlayStation UK and PlayJam will be sponsoring a videogame event called EToo which is meant to be an alternate to E3. The event will take place on the same weekend of E3 (June 10th – 13th) but in Soho’s Loading Bar.
David Wilson, Head of PR for PlayStation UK said, “PlayStation is pretty excited about EToo. As well as giving attendees the chance to witness our E3 conference live, there’ll be loads of time to get hands on with a range of awesome games from the blockbuster, The Last Of Us, to the small but beautifully formed Rain”
Over 30 developers will be at EToo showing off their games including indie developers New Star Games, Hello Games, Big Robot, and more. Capcom will be in attendance with playable demos of Lost Planet 3 and the HD version of Duck Tales.
Co-sponsor PlayJam will be showing off its Android console, the GameStick, which will launch in July.
Would you rather survive a crash landing on a hostile alien world or watch After Earth? Unfortunately, we weren’t given the option to decide one or the other. Then, if you’re not busy, would you maybe like to join us at the 38-minute mark for a 3×3 about dates in movies? We’ll pick you up at eight.
I know that title makes no sense, but that’s what Krieg, Borderlands 2’s newest add-on character, says and I’m not going to tell him differently. This video from Gearbox Software shows us the softer side of this rampaging killer.
The Psycho Pack DLC is currently available for $9.99 for all versions of the game.
New Mexico is infamous for atom bomb tests, UFO sightings, and tales of the Atari 2600 E.T. videogame. The story goes that sometime in September 1983, nine semi-trailer loads of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial game cartridges and other gaming junk was crushed and dumped in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill. The game was a critical and financial bomb for Atari and is often cited as a major factor in the industry’s woes for that decade. Despite its importance in videogame history, the E.T. game disposal passed into the lands of urban legend.
Local station KRQE reports that we may finally get the full story. Alamogordo’s city commissioners have struck a deal with a Canadian film company to excavate the supposed site of the burial. Fuel Industries will have access to the property for six months and will document the dig for an upcoming movie project.
“I hope more people find out about Alamogordo through this opportunity that we have to unearth the Atari games in the landfill,” said Susie Galea, Alamogordo’s mayor.
Good luck! I hope they find that copy of KC’s Crazy Chase I threw away when I was a kid.
Trade routes! Is there anything more exciting? Okay. I guess a lot of stuff is more exciting, but 2K and Firaxis want you to know that Civilization V’s upcoming Brave New World expansion will add international trade routes. Just enjoy the smooth narration of William Morgan Sheppard.
Brave New World will launch on July 9th in the US, and July 12th for the rest of the world.
Electronic Arts is making good on their promise to do away with the Online Pass system. EA has posted a new Online Pass FAQ that explains what’s happening.
For new EA titles, Online Pass will no longer be needed or included. Additionally, we are in the process of eliminating Online Pass requirements from existing EA games. This process will take several weeks. For some games, the prompt to enter an Online Pass code will no longer appear; for others, you will still need to download and install an Online Pass, but they will be available free of charge from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace or PlayStation Store.
The FAQ goes on to state that the newer EA Sports titles will reflect the policy going forward, while other games will be changed over the next few weeks. Some Online Pass DLC for EA games on Xbox Live (such as Bulletstorm) have already been changed to free downloads.
Does Sony’s new PS4 console have DRM to control games similar to the kind of plan we already know the Xbox One will have? Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer in a February interview that a PS4 owner could “play offline” but “may want to keep it connected.” When Eurogamer asked if gamers could resell their PS4 games, the answer was a bit more vague.
Eurogamer: So if someone buys a PlayStation 4 game, you’re not going to stop them reselling it?
Shuhei Yoshida: Aaaah. [Asks PR adviser.] So what was our official answer to our internal question? [Consults adviser.] So, used games can play on PS4. How is that?
At the time, these answers were seen as a refutation of the rumors surrounding Sony’s next-gen console. In light of more recent revelations, namely the Xbox One’s plans and EA discontinuing their Online Pass program, these early Sony answers seem a little less convincing. In fact, there seems to be a lot of wiggle room in those answers. For example, Microsoft told reporters that the Xbox One “could play used games” but neglected to mention that they may have a fee or registration process that makes things more difficult.
Kotaku finally asked Sony for clear answers on the used game DRM and online connectivity issue and received the following response:
I looked into this, and at this point we’re not providing any additional clarification beyond what we stated around the PS4 announcement. If anything changes, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Crytek trolled fans of its Crysis series yesterday by teasing a “major announcement” for today. Crytek fulfilled that promise by announcing that Crysis 3 will return to the series’ tropical island roots!
Unfortunately, for fans looking forward to dynamic firefights under the palm trees like in Crysis, the return is multiplayer only. (Insert cruel laughter here.) The Lost Island DLC includes four new multiplayer maps and two new gameplay modes which I assume will be centered around shooting other anonymous super-soldiers while not giving a damn about the jungle scenery.
The Lost Island map pack will be $15 and will launch on June 4th.
I was several missions into Warhammer Quest before something dawned on me that must be obvious to a lot of you. Warhammer Quest is based on a boardgame. Which explains a lot. But what it doesn’t explain is why this is such a terrible boardgame port.
You may not realize this, since it’s not true, but today is HP Lovecraft Day! So we’ve invited Tabitha Chirrick of Machines in Motion to talk about Kingsport Cases, a game with a unique angle on the Lovecraft mythos. Go here for the Kickstarter page. We also talk about other games attempting Lovecraft, and how they succeed or fail. We’re sure we missed a few, so that’s where you come in. Post them below. For this week’s games of the week, we choose our favorite gods/giants, how Wonder Woman is uniquely suited to run Arkham Asylum, and how many human revolutions it takes to finally save the world. Finally, Tom confesses that he once condoned Lovecraft’s racism, but it was totally on accident.
Sometimes, your fellow players can be a real pain. The players chatting in all caps, using profanities and racial slurs, or just generally being unpleasant can kill a multiplayer community faster than actual gameplay errors. Valve noticed that one of the most cited reasons for leaving a Dota 2 game was due to the behavior of other humans. Since they had a vested interest in keeping players happy and playing the game, they instituted a ban policy that would block all communications from a player that received enough negative reports.
Valve released some statistics of their Dota 2 communication bans and the early results look quite positive.
Since the ban system has been implemented, there’s been a 35% drop in negative communication interactions.
Less than the 1% of the active player base (players who have played Dota 2 in the last month) are currently banned.
60% of players who receive bans go on to modify their behavior and don’t receive further bans.
Total reports are down more than 30%, even after accounting for the reduction in the number permitted per week.
Dota 2 is currently available and it can be purchased from Valve’s Early Access program.
The new Shadow Warrior game is coming later this year, but why not enjoy the 1997 classic Build Engine version for free while you wait? As a promotion for the new game, the pixelated madness of Shadow Warrior is free to play on Steam for a limited time. Throw explosive shurikens, fight demonic sumo wrestlers, shoot ninjas, and make clumsy puns.
By the way, I feel I should get extra points for resisting a Lo Wang joke in the story.
VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports that Blizzard’s next MMO project, codenamed Titan, has been reset and much of the team working on it has been moved to other projects. The revamped MMO product is now internally projected for a 2016 launch.
In 2011, Blizzard COO Paul Sams was optimistic about Titan.
“We have taken some of our most experienced developers and put them on this project. We believe we have a dream team. These are the people who made World of Warcraft a success. We are going to blow people’s minds.”
Earlier leaked information had set the projected launch date sometime in 2014.
