The Breakdown DLC is an alternative way to play State of Decay stripped of all its scripted story beats. Here the characters are all randomly generated, arranged in survivor enclaves for you to recruit, exploit, or ignore as you choose. Your only objective is your score, which is a factor of missions accomplished, zombies killed, upgrades researched, and so forth. At a certain point, your resources will get scarce. That’s when you load up the RV and start a new map with harder zombies and a higher score multiplier. The only story beats are the ones you make.
Okay, that’s not entirely true.
After the jump, meet Lyanna Carter, one of the exceptions. Continue reading →
My first game with the Breakdown DLC for State of Decay ended in the above zombie buffet, with my last survivor as the featured guest. My score was 151. You won’t know how bad that is until you try it yourself when Breakdown comes out next week. Fortunately, the leaderboards don’t seem to be enabled yet, so no one will ever know I did that poorly. I mean, seriously, 151 points?
NBA Live 14’s executive producer has posted an open apology to fans of NBA Live. The game has been negatively received for not being much of a next-gen release, despite advertisements to the contrary leading up to the launch. Besides criticism of the game’s learning curve, players have noted that the graphics are not the equal of preview images.
You’ve also let us know that you’re disappointed by the graphics and animations, and I can tell you that we are committed to making drastic and immediate improvements. In order to get gameplay up and running this year we had to prioritize. We felt authentic gameplay, control and the connected experience would provide the best foundation for the future. As a result, game visuals and animation polish suffered. Improvements on these fronts are also in development now for NBA LIVE 14. You will notice in the coming weeks and months that the game’s visuals and animation will improve significantly.
At least NBA Live 14 isn’t as bad as NBA Live 13.
End of an era indeed. John Carmack, high-profile programmer, aeronautics engineer, technology guru, and VR goggle champion has officially resigned from id Software. You may remember Carmack as the guy that first put an anonymous space marine on Mars and Hell, launched a million LAN parties, and said things that only a few other people on the planet could understand. Studio director Tim Willits assured fans that id will carry on without Carmack’s presence.
John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.
In August, John Carmack took a position as CTO of Oculus, but id’s publisher and owner Bethesda had said that he would continue to work at id in some capacity.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is coming and TaleWorlds has started a blog to remind all the budding horsemen that it’s on the way. The first entry is all about their talented artists.
You’ll find preened moustaches, pretentious glasses, a range of characters and personalities.
I don’t know how hairy or pretentious they are, but they’ve obviously got some talent if that work-in-progress image is any indication. It looks better than the previous entry in the series, which wasn’t an ugly game by any means. Mustache power!
Four heroes are engaged in a struggle against unfathomable evil spanning the continent of Europe. Three of the hunters sweep into East Germany, having found what seems to be Dracula’s trail. The fourth hunter, Mina Harker, is traveling from Spain where she’s been following another lead. When she steps off the train, she is face to face with Dracula himself.
“Don’t worry,” I say to Mina’s player. “We’ll be able to surround him and get him in a few turns. Just do as much damage as you can before he knocks you out.”
After the jump, that’s not quite how it works out. Continue reading →
Brandon Cackowski-Schnell and Tom Chick welcome new contributor Scott Dobrosielsky. Together, the three of them share the excitement of three people with two new Playstations among them.
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Unlike Sony’s PlayStation 4 launch event gala, which was held in New York City, Microsoft’s Xbox One launch celebration has been global. Unfortunately for internet bragging rights, that means the “first official retail owner” title is a bit murky. Of course, we all know that Johnny Chiu was crowned the first official buyer of the PlayStation 4, but who owns that right for the Xbox One? Is it Dan Livingstone of New Zealand? Microsoft’s Phil Harrison seems to think so. But what about Andre Weingarten? He’s one of the folks that purchased an Xbox One at Target a week early. Target admitted that it was a mistake, but about 150 units were sold to lucky buyers then, with a few ending up on eBay. They’re technically the first Xbox Ones “sold” at retail.
Microsoft held a New York City launch event as well. Wait a minute! That guy visiting the line looks mighty familiar.
In every mainstream MMO, the gear your character collects acts, alongside the abilities you choose for your toon, as a gate for accessing more content. It’s an incredibly powerful carrot to dangle in front of players. Get more stuff with better stats and you get to level up and see more of the world. If the equipment the game gives you both looks good and improves your chances of survival, so much the better.
Secret World, though, makes a big part of the loot chase — namely armor — invisible on your character. This effectively divides equipment so that the useful gear you wear can be divorced from the cosmetic way your character appears onscreen. I’m not only chasing loot for practical reasons to improve my guy, but separately I’m also on the lookout for outfits that make him look sharp, too.
After the jump, does this hoodie make my toon look fat? Continue reading →
I’m encircling the darkened dystopia of Acis in the starfighter Nemesis. Scouting reports call Acis a “derelict city run by the species known only as the sentients,” its primary function “a prisoner processing compound.” The city looks like a collapsing Atlantis, the light an aquatic blue. My mission? To save the last humans. Human prisoners are held in glass boxes elevated above a crumbling cylindrical cityscape. Fleets of voxel sentients patrol in patterns. Tanks and cannons launch fire into the sky. Green glowing keepers materialize with a warning. The Nemesis knows their flight path well.
I’m nearing the end of phase three. I’ve saved 9 of 10 humans. I haven’t lost a life or used a bomb. My main cannons are upgraded, homing missiles unlocked. My multiplier is up to 6.85. Overdrive is fully charged. The Nemesis is an agile messenger of destruction spitting bright colored death. I finish off a wave of keepers and a green bolt shoots halfway across the level, shattering the glass box of human number 10.
After the jump, the disastrous rescue of human number 10. Continue reading →
TimeGate’s intellectual property is the subject of a bidding war between Atari, SouthPeak Interactive, and Digital Tribe Games. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the three companies have offered bids for the rights to the Section 8 franchise as well as Minimum, the game TimeGate was working on when they went bankrupt.
According to court papers, CNH teamed with game developer Digital Tribe Games to offer $50,000 in cash plus a 25% royalty on the two games, topping a winning bid by France’s Atari SA. SouthPeak Interactive Corp., which won a multimillion-dollar arbitration award against TimeGate in their dispute over “Section 8,” also says its offer – $40,000 and a 50% royalty – is better than Atari’s, which tried to unload some of its U.S. assets in bankruptcy court earlier this year.
I really liked Section 8: Prejudice’s bots, and the way the game used dynamic goals in multiplayer to change up the gameplay. Alas, the game didn’t sell very well, so multiplayer died quickly. Perhaps a new owner will revitalize the franchise, or at least remove GFWL from the PC version of the game?
Valve has updated Team Fortress 2 to add cosmetic weapon effects. The Two Cities update kicks off with Manhattan which features a new map, changes to statistics reporting, more achievements, and Killstreak Kit drops that can add nifty cosmetic glows to your mayhem.
The loot you’ll get from completing a Tour of Duty will work a bit differently for the Two Cities Tour. Completing a Two Cities Tour automatically grants you a Killstreak Kit, which you can apply to any weapon to transform it into a Killstreak weapon. Completing the Tour also grants you a fabricator and spare parts that you can use to craft progressively rarer Killstreak Kits, which will add cool visual effects to your weapon and eventually even your character.
No doubt Killstreak Kits will be found in a Steam Marketplace near you!
Crimson Dragon, the downloadable Xbox One launch game, is getting a balance patch based on feedback regarding the game’s difficulty. Director Yukio Futatsugi posted that the game’s difficulty is getting a tweak as well as experience and in-game loot payouts. Criticism of the game has centered on the necessity of purchasing in-game currency with real money. The speculation being that the game is designed with free-to-play “energy” mechanics to encourage players into spending money to bypass the grind. Futatsugi claims that the game was always meant to be challenging.
This has always been my vision for the game. I want you to feel like you’ve accomplished something each time you master a mission. To be proud of each dragon you’ve worked so hard to evolve to its ultimate form. My challenge as the game director is to find the sweet spot of adhering to my vision for the game while keeping the game from becoming too frustrating.
Meanwhile, Forza 5 and Gran Turismo 6 are launching with options to purchase in-game credits to buy better cars rather than accumulating the money through races.
Shenandoah’s scoring system has players each pushing and pulling on the same victory point track rather than racking up individual scores. The score is for the game as a whole, and not for either side. For instance, at the beginning of the campaign, with the Russians holding the map and the Germans arriving from the west, the score is a tidy zero. When the Germans capture an important territory, the score goes up. There goes Rzhev! Now the score is three. But when Russia destroys German units or recaptures a territory, the score goes down. Russia just trashed the 36th Motorized Brigade for a point. Now the score is now two. And now they’ve liberated Rzhev. The score is negative one.
After the jump, what can this tell us about Drive on Moscow? Continue reading →
Let me be very upfront about this: I don’t like Lords of Waterdeep. The boardgame. I’m just talking about the boardgame for now. It’s a me-too worker placement game without any meaningful twist other than its forced connection to a fantasy license. What is the fantasy analog to these “agents” we’re placing every turn? Why am I visiting the harbor to commit intrigue? So why are the orange cubes warriors? The purple cubes might as well be ham, silk, elerium, or monarchy points. Oh, they’re wizards. I see. Purple wizards. It’s all worthy of a breakfast cereal and not much else. If I want a good worker placement with distinct theming — or even moderately realized theming instead of this desperate effort to appeal to the Official Dungeons & Dragon Fanbase — I’ll play Carson City, Dominant Species, or Agricola. Lords of Waterderp. See what I did there?
After the jump, now let’s talk about this iOS port. Continue reading →
