Like the previous Metro, Last Light is characterized by the unforced mellow melancholy of a post-apocalypse some people call home. This is not the apocalypse we know and love. The Fallout games could never shake Bethesda’s penchant for fantasy quests and character builds and elaborate inventory subgames and dialogue trees and hearty faithful sidekicks. But Last Light has the somber sense that an apocalypse is not fun. It can be sad, small, dim, and lonely.
After the jump, mayday over Moscow Continue reading →
We regret to inform you that The Great Gatsby podcast will be assimilated into the Star Trek Into Darkness podcast. Or that the Star Trek Into Darkness podcast will be borne back ceaselessly into The Great Gatsby podcast. Tune in next week to find out!
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CD Projekt Red has released the beta of REDkit, the official Witcher 2 editor and SDK. The editor allows users to make new adventures for the steely-eyed white-haired witcher as well as modify existing game content. It’s free for owners of The Witcher 2. The editor wiki can help budding modders get started on their custom creations. There are nude models of Triss Merigold already in the game, so the hard work has already been done for you.
CD Projekt Red also announced the creator of the best mod during the closed beta period for the editor. Philipp Weber’s work-in-progress mod, Lykaon, has netted him a custom-made witcher sword to hang on his wall or sweep over his head like a monster hunter. The mod has Geralt dealing with women from his past. Lykaon will be the CD Projekt Red featured mod for the month. Weber has posted a helpful video tutorial to show folks how to start using the editor.
Did I mention there are nude models of Triss already in the game’s files?
Alleged Sony network hacker, Todd M. Miller, was sentenced on May 9th to one year of house arrest and three years of probation for obstructing a federal investigation. Miller was suspected of being one of the hackers of the Sony PSN servers from 2008 to 2011 that caused disruptions in worldwide services.
At the time, Sony’s reactions to the hacks were kept secret and any leaks of customer data was hidden even from higher level management within the company. It wasn’t until the 2011 hack of the PSN network that Sony was forced to publicly admit to the breaches due to the high-profile nature of the intrusion.
The court convicted Miller of obstruction because he smashed his computers and destroyed evidence before the FBI presented a warrant to him in 2011 for the incriminating hard drives. Without the data, the FBI wasn’t able to gather enough evidence for the prosecuter to bring Miller up on the hacking charges.
If he had been prosecuted of the hack, Miller could’ve faced up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
This week’s wallet threat is dire. Metro Last Light is every bit as good — and unique — as Metro 2033, and far more gorgeous than any game about a grey wasteland should be. The five-star review — spoiler! — will post later tonight.
Also out this week is Anomaly 2, the sequel to the tower defense game that’s actually a tower offense game. The first Anomaly was clever enough, although it was still “just” a tower defense game. Anomaly 2 has a nice twist — all the units have two forms that you can shift at any time — but what cinches this one for me is the potential of the new multiplayer mode, in which one player sets up towers and the other player wends his convoy around the map trying to take them down. Also this week, you can download Dust 514, a free-to-play shooter for the Playstation 3 made by the developer of Eve Online that intends to take the MMO planetside. See what I did there?
Square Enix reported their Q4 earnings and posted a 13.7 billion yen loss. SE cited “strategic initiatives such as a change in its development policy, organizational reforms, and redesign of some business models” for the extraordinary losses. Additionally, sluggish performance of arcade machines led to an operating loss for the Amusement segment of the business.
The SE report states that the company will revamp their strategy regarding the mobile space by targeting more development for tablets and smartphones.
The business environment surrounding the Group is in the midst of major changes, where smart devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are spreading rapidly, while the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly competitive and oligopolistic. In light of such environmental changes, the Group is focusing all efforts on a substantial earnings improvement through driving reforms of business structure in order to establish new revenue base.
Strategic resource allocation will also see changes due to the company’s shift in focus. Less will be spent on new engine and technology development, while more money will be spent on marketing.
It’s a good thing Pinball FX 2 is so good, because I have a few complaints about its recent arrival to the PC. Imagine that. Someone complaining about the PC port of a fantastic console game.
After the jump, tilt? Continue reading →
Trion Worlds has announced that their MMO shooter Defiance will be getting five DLC offerings this year. The first pack, called Enter The Castithan, will enable new weapons for all players and access to Sieges which will be a new open-world game mode. People that pay $10 for the pack will additionally get access to play the Castithan Species as well as a new set of story missions. Nathan Richardsson, the executive producer, wrote that each DLC release will come with free benefits for everyone, as well as content only for players that buy the DLC.
We do our DLCs a bit differently with Defiance. Every time we do a DLC, of which we have 5 planned this year, we have a free component, a paid component and a store update. The free part is for everyone. We want people to be playing with their friends; we don’t like to isolate players.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be exclusive content in the DLCs, quite the contrary. The difference is that you can usually bring your friends with you. The catch is that they can’t directly benefit from all of it, like DLC specific loot or gain abilities.
In related news, the SyFy TV show has been picked up for another season. Thirteen new episodes will be created to air in 2014, which is good news for people that want their transmedia products to keep chugging along.
Wargaming has filed a lawsuit against Chinese companies Changyou.com Limited and Gamease for their Project Tank which seems to be a blatant copy of World of Tanks. Polygon reports that the complaint alleges that Project Tank (also known as Ground War Tanks and Tanks Ground War) “copied the plot, theme, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, and character of World of Tanks, in addition to copying specific features, items, tanks, and artwork.”
For their part, Gamease and Changyou claim that Wargaming is bullying them. No. I’m not kidding.
“We feel truly shocked and bullied by Wargaming. A giant company of the gaming industry who is apparently ‘threatened’ by a closed beta phase browser game aiming to provide a cheaper, fairer, and more accessible war game to players around the world.”
The filed documents point out examples of the copying. These include features unique to World of Tanks such as historical inaccuracies made for the sake of gameplay and specific tanks that never existed in reality. Wargaming also accuses Project Tank of violating their patent on dynamic matchmaking.
Too Human developer, Silicon Knights, has laid off almost all of their staff and sold most of their assets, but CFO Mike Mays told Polygon that the studio is “definitely alive” and “very busy.” Mays did not elaborate on what Silicon Knights is busy working on, or even where they are located, but an Ontario real estate agent confirmed that the offices in which Dennis Dyack’s former company used to work are empty and available for lease. Silicon Knights has not filed for bankruptcy as of yet.
Some of the old hardware (to include computers and desks) was sold to Dennis Dyack’s new studio Precursor Games, which is currently working on Shadow of the Eternals. Assets such as computers were wiped clean before the sale to ensure that no art or coding work from Silicon Knights would transfer to the new company as specified by the courts.
Silicon Knights still faces a $4.45 million judgment against it due to a successful lawsuit from Epic Games for breach of the Unreal Engine license agreement used during the development of Too Human.
Call it the little VR kit that could. The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is getting support from all corners of gaming. Hobbyists to professional developers are coming forward with headset projects so we can watch videos of guys wearing a black box on their faces swing their heads around. Pretty good for a product that started out as a Kickstarter that still hasn’t actually been released for the general public.
After the jump, let’s check out some head-bobbin’ projects! Continue reading →
I played Metro 2033 on the Xbox 360, so maybe that’s why I don’t remember is looking nearly as good as Metro Last Light, which is often “why is this running at such an acceptable framerate??????” gorgeous. For instance, could Metro 2033 fit this many Nazis onto the screen at once? Not that I remember.
Balance is like the reverse of pornography: everyone can give you a definition, but no one seems to be able to know when they see it. Oh sure, they think they know. Plenty of people will tell you that this race is overpowered, or that class is imba, and people go on to repeat it until it takes on a life of its own. I’ve seen plenty of game reviews declare a game is balanced or imbalanced, often on release day when I’m not sure how anyone can know that for sure.
The problem with balance is that just because someone hasn’t won with a particular race, or strategy, or build, doesn’t mean they can’t. Likewise, just because you found a strategy that won a bunch of games early doesn’t mean there isn’t a much better strategy that someone just hasn’t figured out yet. Or more pointedly, that they haven’t used against you.
But, after the jump, Battle of the Bulge is imba! Continue reading →
Sins of a Solar Empire developer Ironclad isn’t just working on Sins of a Dark Age, their upcoming contribution to the League of Legends genre. Today, they announced more DLC for their sci-fi RTS, which features equal parts smart gameplay and shamefully hot space porn. Okay, maybe it’s a 60/40 split, but I’m not sure which way.
Forbidden Worlds — a perfect name for more space porn — includes “four new planet types to colonize and exploit (Barren, Ferrus, Greenhouse, Oceanic), each created with beautiful high-res textures”. This will nicely round out the Earth, Hoth, and Tatooine planet types currently in the game. Settling the new planets types will require new techs, since you can’t very well build a city on the ocean without consulting scientists first. This means more techs on the already crowded tech trees. Science is hard work and boy, is there a lot of it!
But here’s the one that caught my eye.
New Planet Specialization System: Dedicate your worlds to either social or industrial output. Devoting your planet to social improvements will increase its population and culture, at the cost of trade income and ship production. Choosing an industrial path will limit your growth and culture, but make your planet a trading and ship building powerhouse.
Sins of a Solar Empire is mostly a fleet-based game of sci-fi naval combat. But if you want to get finicky (i.e. good), you have to master a touch of empire management by setting up trade routes, refineries, and culture centers. Planet specialization could fit neatly into that element of Sins.
And then there’s this:
Discover 40 new planet bonuses during your exploration of the galaxy, unlocking the dark past of the Sins’ universe.
New bonuses are great for empires who can spare the resources to explore worlds. I love that Sins expects me to decide whether to build a bigger fleet or buy another roll of the dice for an artifact. But what’s that bit about “unlocking the dark past”? Valley Without Wind was a mostly story-free game in which you unlocked rare shreds of backstory as you played. The universe of Sins of a Solar Empire is rich with gameplay; it’s about time the developers at Ironclad dribbled in bits of lore.
Forbidden Worlds will be available for $5 on June 5th.
The venture firms of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, The Mayfield Group, and others have invested more than $15 million towards OUYA, the $99 Android-powered console. The Wall Street Journal interviewed CEO Julie Uhrman for details about the new funding.
“The money’s going to be used predominantly for two things: one is to support game development. We’d love to bring exclusive titles to OUYA. We announced an exclusive game from Airtight Games last week, we have others coming from Tripwire Interactive and high-profile games from high-profile independent games like Fez from Phil Fish. Tim Schafer’s DoubleFine is bringing ‘A Broken Age,’ so it’ll allow us to do more of those things.”
“The second is to support demand. We’ve seen incredible demand from retail and from the website. Obviously it depends on the retailer. It’s gonna be no different than what any other product.”
OUYA also announced that although some early backer units were shipped, the official launch date of the console has been pushed back to June 25th to fix controller manufacturing issues. The OUYA initially created waves by raising over $8 million in its Kickstarter funding when the company had only asked for $950K.
