The 1000 Club Expansion free DLC is coming to Forza Horizon tomorrow. We like free stuff, right? The DLC adds over a thousand challenges to the game (five per collectible car) that encourages players to compete for bragging rights. Most of the challenges can be completed with the cars that came with the retail game, but owners of previous DLC will have more challenges to overcome.
With the 1000 Club Expansion, each car in Forza Horizon will have a number of new challenges associated with it. Once you select a car, you’ll see each of the challenges you can complete while driving it. These challenges come from practically all facets of Forza Horizon’s gameplay – from skills challenges like drifting or jumping, to plain and simple speed zone challenges and all points in between. There are location-based challenges, like drifting around the winding roads of Red Rocks, or new twists on familiar Horizon Festival events.
The DLC also adds 10 new Xbox Live Achievements and two new cars, including the snazzy 1956 Ford F100 pictured above.
Lovelorn mindfucks aren’t what they used to be. I mostly blame Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jesse Armstrong’s fiercely insightful The Entire History of You from the British series Black Mirror didn’t help (watch it before the mostly likely toothless American remake arrives, courtesy of Robert Downey Jr). So it’s a bit late for Danny Boyle’s lightweight Trance, a mindfuck oddly jammed into a movie about an art heist by some lovable thugs. Don’t read too much into the early torture scene. It’ll pass. The real substance of movie is after the fact, when hypnotist Rosario Dawson helps James McAvoy recover his memory about the $27 million stolen Goya he misplaced. Oops. The solution comes down to Dawson’s shaved pubic hair. I’m not making that up. It’s particularly disappointing that this is what we get when Boyle rejoins Shallow Grave and Trainspotting screenwriter John Hodge.
At least Boyle knows how to shoot dreamlike energetic sequences that weave and build and crescendo spectacularly. The aforementioned reveal about Miss Dawson’s grooming, for instance. Anthony Dod Mantle’s lurid realer-than-real supersaturated cinematography is as gorgeous as ever (you can see Mantle’s work most recently in Dredd). And Trance has a sexy finale that makes me want to watch Boyle’s Sunshine again, which features fiery crescendos on a larger scale. But Trance ends with an unsatisfying “gotcha!” resolution that does more to sell iPads than elicit a-ha’s. Where’s my Eternal Sunshine DVD and Sunshine Blu-ray?
For the last year and a half we’ve been working on new content for Skyrim; from the game updates, Creation Kit, Steam Workshop, Kinect support, to DLCs. Parts of our team have also been in pre-production on our next major project, and that game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it our biggest and best work yet.
Even though we’re moving on, we’ll still have minor updates to Skyrim as needed. We’ve invested so much of ourselves into Skyrim and will never truly say goodbye to it.
Although the blog post did not mention the new project by name, it is rumored to be Fallout 4.
What Defiance does well, it does well enough. This is basically a wide open playground dotted with activities, almost of all which come down to shooting a bunch of dudes, and sometimes pressing a button once you’ve shot them. But lots of shooting. Gratifying shooting with as many different guns as you like. Light machineguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns (three flavors!), pistols (as if), some lasery things, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, a gun that shoots bugs. Guns, guns, guns! It’s very nearly mindless.
The shooting activities are scattered widely enough, and the world is big enough, that you’ll often have to zip around on your vehicle, enjoying featherweight simulated driving physics along the way. Say what you will about these vehicles, but they’re ten time better than any MMO horse I’ve had to ride. You can do races, but they’re just a brief distraction from the shooting. Defiance is a game with focus. 85% shooting. 15% driving.
2K has removed the page for their XCOM shooter as well as all the preview videos from their official Youtube page. The game, unveiled at E3 2010, was supposed to be a first-person-shooter set in a version of 1962 America being invaded by aliens and has long been rumored to be in development trouble.
A Superannuation rumor report from last week suggests that the 2K Marin developed shooter may be rebranded as The Bureau, dissassociating it from the X-COM brand. A 2K survey in October 2012 asked respondants if they’d like the game if it was turned into a third-person cover shooter with a less-expensive digital download size.
Before Mortal Kombat’s latest surprisingly good reboot, there was Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, which was not surprisingly good. Or so I’ve been told. I myself never explored the implications of who would win in a fight between Superman and Johnny Cage. I’m pretty sure there is no version of that match-up where the answer shouldn’t have been Superman, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen Zack Snyder’s upcoming biopic.
And now this week, the team that made the Mortal Kombat reboot so good, NetherRealm, releases Injustice: Gods Among Us, which reboots only the DC Universe portion of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. The box cover poses the question, “Who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman?” and implies that the answer is “The Joker”. Well played, box cover.
I just hope it’s not too difficult to unlock Aquaman.
Speaking of heroics at sea, Jetpack Joyride developer Halfbrick will mostly likely release their next game this week (the release date isn’t yet official). Fish out of Water for the iOS, in which you throw fish like you’ve never thrown fish before, is every bit as addicting and adorable as Jetpack Joyride. But wait, there are more naval shenanigans! I’m really excited about Victoria II: Hearts of Darkness, which revamps naval battles and colonization in Paradox’s brilliant strategy game. As you can deduce from the title, the focus is on Africa, often overlooked in favor of the sexier America when it comes to historical strategy gaming and real life.
Sacred Citadels is a side-scrolling brawler not from the folks who made Sacred 2. It’s supposed to be a sort of prequel/appetite whetter for the upcoming Sacred 3, which is also not from the folks who made Sacred 2.
Finally, there’s DLC for Dishonored, in which you play the jerk responsible for the main character getting dishonored, and Black Ops II, in which you play a guy who gets shot a lot by other people online.
EA is shutting down SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society. The three free-to-play Facebook games developed by Playfish will cease operation on June 14th. All three are being retired so EA “can reallocate development resources to other titles.”
Players are being encouraged to spend the rest of their in-game money before the shutdown. The in-game cash will not be returned and will instead be rendered invalid.
Some footage has leaked of what seems to be unstructured gameplay of The Elder Scrolls Online. I won’t bother linking to it here since it will have moved to another spot by the time you read this, but it’s out there. The internet being what it is, I’m sure there will be a way for you to find it. The video shows some character creation options, the starting area of Port Hunding, some combat against a few rats, a mudcrab, and some bandits, and finally resurrecting at a Wayshrine. It’s all MMO standard stuff with some Elder Scrolls nouns pasted on.
ZeniMax Online has not commented on the video at this time.
You don’t maintain a 0.46 kill/death ratio in Black Ops II by just logging in from time to time and playing. It takes a certain type of innate skill. 9.77% accuracy with your gun of choice isn’t something that just happens. It takes concentration and nerves of steel to bring wild spraying to bear on your target. Be the bullet, I tell myself. The one that’s going to connect with the dude you just stumbled into and who is now about to kill you. I enter a zen-like state. Time slows. I see all possible outcomes, drawn before me in a luminous web of possibility. Fear me, IKillzU_420. 4.6 times out of ten, I prevail.
Black Ops II is having a double XP weekend. It’s always gratifying to see a double xp tag pop up from time to time during a match. I feel like I’m getting away with something. Like double coupon Tuesday at the store.
My intention was to quickly boot up Black Ops II so it could patch itself after months of inactivity. I meant to get ready for next week’s Uprising add-on, which consists of four news maps and a new zombie mode. But then I thought I’d just check and see what level I was. Then a quick look at my loudouts. Ah, right, that gun with that attachment. Yes, those tactical grenades. Hmm, that perk? What did I think that was going to do? What was Tom Chick thinking last December when he was still playing this? Let’s hop online real quick and take it for a spin.
At which point Xbox Live decides to barf out for several hours. Microsoft’s servers went offline for the Black Ops II double xp weekend, which demonstrates why there’s no way the next Xbox is going to be as always online as some supposed Cassandras are claiming. Because even though I wasn’t able to work on my 0.46 K/D ratio, I was able to poke around at the campaign, checking my high score, considering ways to replay missions for a higher score, or to do the challenges that unlock more stuff, or maybe even to work on a hardened or veteran level playthrough, which would not only improve my scores, but would unlock the achievement. And, perhaps most imporantly, I would beat podcast co-host Jason McMaster’s mission scores, and thereby unlock something more precious than any achievement: gloating rights.
And while I’m still looking forward to Uprising’s new maps and new zombie mode, the overall takeaway for me this weekend is that Black Ops II holds up, even without the DLC (although the last DLC pack includes a skatepark map (pictured), which is the best skateboard-related thing Activision has made in years).
Read the original Black Ops II review here. Uprising will be available on Tuesday for $15 or as the second of four downloads included in the $50 Season Pass.
Firaxis rolled out some publicity for their upcoming Brave New World expansion for Civilization V. Among the gaggle of interviews, Lead Designer Ed Beach spoke to PC Gamer and took a moment to address Jon Shafer’s recent criticism of his own work in designing the base Civ V game.
“He was a little harsh on it,” said Beach. “And I won’t try to guess as to exactly what his frame of mind was, where he’s coming from.”
“Unit stacking can be a problem in Civ V, and I definitely think we’ve been acknowledging that for a while,” continued Beach. “In Gods & Kings we made a change so that embarked land units could stack with naval units, because there was a lot of congestion out in the seas. So, there were definitely issues, but I’m still a big fan of one unit per tile. I think it improves the combat in so many ways, there’s so much more tactical maneuvering and positioning.”
Jon Shafer had posted an essay of lessons learned in making Civ V, and the one unit per tile (1UPT) design in his Kickstarter for At the Gates in which he stated that although he found the combat in Civ V better than previous Civilization games that allowed unit stacking, he admitted that there were problems. Shafer wrote that designing good 1UPT AI was a challenge and that the maps had too many bottlenecks to allow for proper maneuvers.
Speculation aside, the reality was that the congestion caused by 1UPT also impacted other parts of the game. In every prior Civ title it was no problem to have ten, fifty or even a thousand units under your control. Sure, larger numbers meant more to manage, but hotkeys and UI conveniences could alleviate much of the problem. But in Civ 5, every unit needed its own tile, and that meant the map filled up pretty quickly.
To address this, I slowed the rate of production, which in turn led to more waiting around for buckets to fill up. For pacing reasons, in the early game I might have wanted players to be training new units every 4 turns. But this was impossible, because the map would have then become covered in Warriors by the end of the classical era. And once the map fills up too much, even warfare stops being fun.
Volition has had an amazing couple of years. They shipped the disappointing Red Faction Armageddon, then shipped the critically and commercially successful Saints Row: The Third. Shortly afterwards, parent company THQ imploded and Volition was sold in an auction to Koch Media and publisher Deep Silver.
Now, they are developing Saints Row 4 and settling in with their new bosses. Volition spoke to Polygon about the transition and what it means to create a game the tops the gonzo zaniness of Saints Row: The Third.
During the auction process, the team at Volition had to receive potential bidders at its Champaign offices, giving the competition a thorough, unrestricted tour of its facilities, its technology and its projects. Including the still-unannounced Saints Row 4.
“For example, here’s Ubisoft sitting across the room from you,” Boone explained. “And, you’re going through everything in your project. You’re talking about the budget, you’re talking about the staff, you’re talking about your process, you’re talking about your… I mean, everything.
“They’re all our competitors. So, it’s like… it’s strange. One of the ways we reconciled it – at least selfishly for Saints Row 4 – is that we knew that, in the not-too-distant future, we were going to be announcing the game.”
Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli is famously outspoken about the games his company makes and the direction he believes the industry is headed. Yerli spoke to X360 Magazine and said that graphics are “60% of the game.”
“People say that graphics don’t matter,” says Yerli, “but play Crysis and tell me they don’t matter. It’s always been about graphics driving gameplay.”
Yerli told Gamasutra in March that he blamed Crysis 3’s less than enthusiatic reception on “console fatigue” and expectations based on the first Crysis game.
After an Easter hiatus, Vickie’s Tomb Raider let’s plays, posted on YouTube under the name Owlsighs, have resumed! I love how Crystal Dynamics is playing her like a violin. For instance, her reaction to Dr. Whitman. And these:
“Is there someone singing in the background?”
“Oh. That’s open now. That wasn’t open the last time.”
“That’s disgusting! That would smell horrible!”
“What language is this? What is that symbol?”
“What’s with the creepy music if these are our friends?”
“Oh my god, no frickin’ way. Oh for Pete’s sake, really? Oh, frick.”
“Hmm, looks like we could jump up there. Let’s try it.”
Nintendo of America sent word that some Wii channels will be shut down in June. You remember the Wii, right? That’s that small white console that glows blue when you turn the lights out. The following channels will turn off forever on June 28th:
Nintendo Channel
News Channel
Forecast Channel
Everybody Votes Channel
Mii Contest Channel
I was fortunate enough to be part of Jason Schreier’s thoughtfully written and incendiarily titled article on Kotaku, Metacritic Matters: How Review Scores Hurt Videogames. I enjoyed Schreier’s article for the diversity of sources he used, and I’m grateful that he invited me to participate. But I can’t help but wonder that he introduced me as “well-known for aberrant scores”. That’s far more of a statement about the state of videogame criticism than a statement about me. As a reviewer, I believe strongly in two things and I don’t feel either of these things should be “aberrant”: 1) I believe in using the entire range of a ratings system, and 2) I believe in rating games based on my experience with them rather than pretending I have some objective insight into their level of quality. We’re talking about entertainment here, not toasters, cell phones, or automobiles.
Schreier concludes that the system — Metacritic aggregating someone who uses the entire range with someone who doesn’t use the entire range — doesn’t work. I couldn’t disagree more. I would argue that what doesn’t work and what’s hurting videogames is how many reviewers pretend ridiculously towards objective insight measured on a bell curve that spots a game 60 points for just showing up, but deprives them of 100 points for not being perfect.
I’m grateful to be on Metacritic because it’s a fundamental part of the modern conversation about entertainment. People like to gauge the consensus on their entertainment. People like numbers, statistics, math, lists, favorites. It’s part of nearly any hobby. And I’m the same way, as a guy who plays games and as a guy who writes about games. Unlike a lot of writers — Adam Sessler really unloaded on Metacritic in Schreier’s article, implying that it keeps food from game developers’ families — I don’t hate the aggregates. On the contrary, I consult them frequently, and I feel they provide a valuable if sometimes flawed service.
My issue is with the data fed into Metacritic. An aggregate is only as good as its individual components. The system that doesn’t work is the perception that videogame scores are somehow an objective measure of a game’s quality. They aren’t. They’re a measure of how much a reviewer liked a game. Any other perception of a rating is fundamentally broken. It’s not Metacritic’s fault that so many reviews treat videogames like toasters, cell phones, and automobiles.
It’s also not Metacritic’s fault that so many of the larger sites are so cowardly about how they rate games. I don’t believe that what IGN and Game Informer do has to be the norm, any more than I believe that what Fox News or The Daily Sun does is the norm. Big media isn’t the same thing as right media. The solution is for more critics to use the full range of their rating systems, and for readers to recognize that three stars at Quarter to Three isn’t the same thing as a 6.0 at Gamespot, which isn’t the same as a 6 at Eurogamer. Tom Chick is not the same person as Kevin VanOrd, who is not the same person as Tom Bramwell. We have our own perspectives and methodologies, and none of those perspectives or methodologies gets to dictate the norm at Metacritic. That’s the point of an aggregate. It should be a variety of voices pulling in a variety of directions, and not a bunch of non-committal uncritical mumbling huddled under a drab tent pitched between the 70 and the 90. Personally, I feel it’s a failure of games criticism that I’m so often at the bottom of the page on Metacritic.
And as for how this data supposedly deprives game developers’ families of food — seriously, Sessler, if that’s your priority, put down the microphone and break out a pair of poms poms — I love the games industry and what it does. I want it to succeed. I want every studio to remain open and every employee to get a bonus and every game to make every publisher rich. I write about videogames because I’m an enthusiast. But more importantly than wanting games to succeed, I want games to be good, to get better, to grow up, to offer unique and meaningful experiences, to speak to people in the same way that books and movies and music speak to people. Recognizing when that happens and calling it out when that doesn’t happen is more important to me than making sure someone gets his bonus. I told Schreier in our conversation that my main obligation was to my readers. But upon reflection, I’m not sure that’s true. My main obligation is to the medium.
