State of Decay, a supposedly open-world zombie survival sandbox, doesn’t seem very sandboxy at first. Two buddies are coming back from a camping trip only to discover the zombie apocalypse happened while they were out of range of cell phone service. Don’t you hate it when that happens? So they throw in with a handful of survivors at the ranger’s station to play a sort of third-person sneaker with some headshotting, meleeing, resource management, and even driving. Some scripted stuff happens. So far, all this could have happened in Dead Island: Rip Tide.
But I hadn’t met Ondrej yet.
After the jump, things that absolutely couldn’t happen in Dead Island: Rip TideContinue reading →
So I’m running around an instanced mission with a Hawkeye, a Thing, and two Storms. I’m Jean Grey, of course. I’m morphed into my Phoenix form, wings splayed out bigger than any of the other character models, marvelous flames a-flicker all over my body, flinging fireballs, emanating waves of deadly fire. I’m a flame-based scrubbing bubble, scouring this lair of bad guys, picking off the distant ones with my fireballs, debuffing the attacking mobs with my telepathic lethargy. My Phoenix power is supposed to drain slowly, but for whatever reason, that’s not happening now. I can Phoenix as long as I want. If you’re going to have launch issues, this isn’t a bad one to have.
My teammates are playing free characters. You get to choose The Thing, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Daredevil, or Black Widow when you sign up. I’m pretty sure you get Storm as a mission reward early on. At least I did. That would explain the pair of Storms firing lightning vainly into my maelstrom of fire. How cute. You can play the free dudes to your heart’s content, up to the level cap and beyond. Of course, along the way, you’ll get loot for characters who aren’t free. You might sell it. You’ll more likely put it in your stash at Stark Tower. Every time you open your stash, you’ll consider a Captain America for that shield, a Wolverine for those claws, and how nifty Thor might look in those boots. Furthermore, you’ll see folks like me playing resplendent superheroes like Jean Grey in her Phoenix form and you’ll want them. It’s not pushy. It’s far more effective than being pushy. It’s in your face, on your shoulder, whispering in your ear. It’s actually pretty darn clever. I suspect I’ll end up with an Iron Man on my roster by the end of the day.
Marvel Heroes is live today. Jump in without paying a nickel. Pick The Thing, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Daredevil, or Black Widow. Jean Grey and Iron Man, however, cost $12 each.
The free gaming buzzword war has escalated! Wargaming.net has raised the stakes by introducing a new term to describe the latest developments for their tank combat game. “Free-to-win” is being rolled out across the front to take over “freemium” and “pay-to-play” after executing a brutal sneak attack on “pay-to-win” resulted in significant enemy losses.
Wargaming.net described free-to-win to Gamasutra as the revamp of World of Tanks that will do away with all options to purchase items that could be described as pay-to-win. All future revenue will come from non-advantageous content, such as premium vehicles, personalization options and the like. Andrei Yarantsau, VP of publishing, says part of the strategy is based on making World of Tanks more fair for the eSports competitive scene.
“Our new World of Tanks features, including recent changes in our business model, are aimed at further growing our games in this direction. Professional sport – and gaming is no exception – is about fair competition. The introduction of our new free-to-win system will really help facilitate the development of World of Tanks as a true eSports discipline.”
World of Tanks store options have already begun to change in support of the free-to-win plan. This strategy will be applied to all future Wargaming.net titles.
That’s a dragon pinata in Guild Wars 2. That’s about as meta as you can get. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Killing enemies in most MMO games is just a digital take on a pinata party. You’re hitting monsters to make loot fall out and scrambling for the prizes. By actually putting pinatas in the game, ArenaNet is getting closer to Inception.
Lion’s Arch honors the defiant spirit of its citizenry with the rousing Dragon Bash festival, when revelers laugh in the face of fear! Sponsored by the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch, Dragon Bash is a month-long celebration packed with all-new activities, fireworks, exclusive rewards, and surprises galore!
Guild Wars 2 players will be able to smash dragon-shaped pinatas in the Dragon Bash update coming on June 11th.
Lionhead released the above teaser trailer for a Fable HD remake. Despite the video’s beginning, I’m not sure how much demand there was for this. At least it’s not another Fable Heroes.
We should know more at E3 where Microsoft promises to talk about games.
UPDATE: The game has been officially announced. It’s called Fable Anniversary.
GungHo CEO Kazuki Morishita told reporters that he wants to surpass Nintendo’s sales before he retires. Bloomberg reports that the 39-year-old’s comments came as he was being interviewed in Tokyo after his company posted Q1 results.
GungHo’s revenue for Q1 came to approximately $307 million, one third of Nintendo’s numbers for the same period. While that may make it may seem like GungHo has a long way to go to reach Morishita’s goal, the company also reported growth of 900% while Nintendo only grew 1%.
“I want to make people think whatever GungHo does is fun,” like they do at Nintendo, Morishita said. “I respect Nintendo.”
GungHo’s success is largely built on the free-to-play mobile phone game Puzzle & Dragons which rakes in about $3.4 million a day. It’s not as popular in the West, but Puzzle & Dragons is the top-grossing app for smartphones in the world. It has remained in the top of the charts since its debut in February 2012.
GungHo plans to bring Puzzle & Dragons to the Nintendo 3DS later this year. Although the 3DS version will not have the lucrative in-app purchases, GungHo has stated that the game is “targeting children” to “increase lifetime customers” of their brand.
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.
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.
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.
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.
