That’s the new logo for Fox News’ “Defending the Homeland” segment in their long-running Fox & Friends show. Does it look familiar? It should. Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock Infinite certainly recognized it. Ripping off artwork and re-purposing it for other things is nothing new, but there’s some great irony in Fox News using the logo from a violent first-person shooter about bigoted religious zealots living in a city in the clouds.
You know you’ve made it big when celebrities starting hitting you up for out-of-court settlements! So congratulations to Rockstar for Lindsey Lohan’s claim that she deserves some of their money because the character Lacey Jones (pictured) was so obviously based on her. Of course, Rockstar won’t really hit the bigtime until Jack Nicholson files his suit for the Trevor character.
The British Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that Electronic Arts can no longer claim that their free-to-play mobile version of Dungeon Keeper is actually free in their United Kingdom marketing. According to the ASA statement, advertisements were found to be misleading because players would discover that their rate of progress was hindered unless they spent money to bypass timers. Although EA explained that the in-game currency could be obtained through grinding without spending real money, the ASA did not find the excuse sufficient.
We acknowledged that the Gem currency, through which the timers could be skipped, could be obtained for free through normal gameplay and that the game could therefore be played without spending currency to bypass the countdown. However, we understood that the rate at which they could be accrued was slow in comparison to the amount needed to play the game at a reasonable rate, where the delays did not significantly impact on the ability to continue playing. Given this, we considered that players were likely to find themselves in a situation where they wished to bypass timers to achieve the expected gameplay as above, but were unable to do so without making a monetary purchase of the Gem currency. Although the game activities were available without cost to the player, we considered that for players to achieve the gameplay experience that was reasonable for them to anticipate, it was likely that they would need to spend money on the premium currency.
The ASA has directed Electronic Arts to change their UK advertising to clarify what players should expect from free gameplay and how in-app purchases may be used to speed up progress.
Even in the zombie apocalypse, the one constant is the dilution of the Dead Island brand. Deep Silver has announced Escape Dead Island, a third-person singleplayer survival game. War of the Vikings and War of the Roses maker Fatshark is developing the game. It’s set between Dead Island and the upcoming Dead Island 2. The player, as Cliff Calo, (I swear that’s the character’s name) steals a yacht and goes to the archipelago of Narapela off the coast of zombie-infested Banoi to film a documentary but things go wrong. I’m guessing it’s zombies. Again. Presumably Cliff has to then escape the island. Which is dead. Escape Dead Island is cel-shaded which senior producer Alexander Toplansky says helps convey the surreal story.
Cliff struggles with his own sanity as the world around him begins to become increasingly unpredictable. Time distorts and folds in on itself; strange messages appear and impossible events shatter reality. Oceans turn to blood, containers plummet from the clear sky… If Cliff had any thoughts about this being a routine documentary, he’d be “dead” wrong.
Escape Dead Island is slated to lurch onto PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC later this year.
Another MOBA? Sure! Why not? Step over here and join the line of real-time top-down multiplayer hero combat games in development! This time it’s CD Projekt Red working with Fuero Games to bring The Witcher: Battle Arena to mobile platforms later this year. Players can use popular characters from The Witcher franchise like sexy sorceress, sexy dryad, sexy female warrior, or a sexy dwarf to battle other players. Matches consist of 3v3 hero combat with no creeps to get in the way. Just madly tap on your touchscreen to fight! Is it free-to-play? Of course it is!
Everything in the game is unlockable for free, just by playing the game. Our system is honest, well balanced and doesn’t keep you playing for ages to unlock something. If you want to get something unlocked faster, you can purchase it for a reasonable price. It’s that simple.
The only thing that seems to be missing is a certain sexy white-haired Witcher.
Electronic Arts and Popcap have announced the Tactical Taco Party Pack DLC for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. In the video announcement, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb, says that the free DLC is sponsored by Aquafina. The Party Pack adds the Jewel Junction map, a new game mode that’s similar to the “Kill Confirmed” mode in the Call of Duty series, and two new character variants that I’m sure Aquafina hopes will inspire gamers to quench their thirst with their FlavorSplash products. Players can be now be Berry Shooter or Citrus Cactus. Why wouldn’t anyone want to chug down the refreshing taste of an orange cactus?
The Tactical Taco Party Pack DLC is available for Xbox One and Xbox 360 tomorrow.
Sniper Elite 3 released last week and many players are enjoying the long-distance shooting and improved level design of this third installment of the franchise. Grizzled stealth guy versus the Afrika Korps! Unfortunately, that’s not true for at least 7,050 people that are victims of a serial key theft. According to Rebellion, that many Sniper Elite 3 Steam serial keys were stolen from an unnamed retailer. Those stolen keys were then sold to multiple online distributors, which were then purchased by consumers. Rebellion notified Valve of the theft and the keys have been revoked from Steam.
As a developer Rebellion are happy for you to purchase the game anywhere you see fit and support price competition in the PC market – we have in no way targeted any specific vendors (who may have also thought these keys were legitimate), just this one set of keys.
All we can suggest if you have been affected is to please contact your vendor and first ask for a replacement key.
As a partial solution, Rebellion is giving players that had their game revoked free keys for the Target Hitler DLC that was part of the pre-order offer.
One of the issues with Age of Wonders 3 was the lack of variation in the endgame. You build up armies, gather magical fuel, then slog your way through battle after battle until the last enemy city falls. It’s a failure that many strategy games are guilty of, but it seems all the worse in Triumph’s Age of Wonders 3 because everything else is so damn good. I nurtured pixies and ice giants, researched spells that cause earthquakes and fire to rain from the sky, and this is it? I get another city to manage? Sheesh! I should’ve stayed in my first city.
The developers have taken some of that criticism and are hoping that the addition of a new victory condition will help add variety. Seals of Power, magical landmarks that can appear on maps, will act as control points for players to fight over. Owning a seal by defeating the guardian and placing a unit on it, grants charges to the owner. Once enough charges are accumulated, it’s game over. This will give wizards something else to fight over, but as Triumph explains, seal owners can’t get too complacent even if rival wizards aren’t nearby.
The Seals of Power, even after being conquered and owned, are still dangerous however! Periodically a Seal will spawn a new army of elemental guardians to attack the player occupying it. So players will need to keep strong armies on the Seals in order to keep control over them.
Along with the Seals of Power, Triumph plans to release new elemental units, and a new Overview screen to track player progress towards victory. No release date has been set for the additions.
The Sims 4 will launch without toddlers or swimming pools. EA Maxis confirmed the bad news in a post-E3 announcement. While the developers were keen to let everyone know that the new building mode is the most dynamic and intuitive that it’s ever been, the lack of two features that have been staples of the series (pools were in the base The Sims game, while toddlers were part of The Sims 2 and 3) has longtime Sims fans questioning the publisher’s motives. Will either feature return? Would it be paid DLC or a free update? In addition to the lack of toddlers and pools, the much-vaunted Create-a-Style feature from The Sims 3, which allowed players to replace object textures, will not be present.
The Sims 4 will launch on September 2nd for PCs. A Mac version has been confirmed, but no release date has been announced.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was one of the featured deals yesterday in the Steam Summer Sale. It’s still 50% off today. The common wisdom is that price drops on multiplayer games is a good thing. You gain more players, the community grows, and (hopefully) positive word of mouth will be generated by all the newbies having fun. It should be good news for Valve too, right? More players mean more weapon skin drops that will be sold in the marketplace generating trade revenue. So why is it that hardcore players don’t welcome the sale? Cheating is big business. That’s why.
PC Gamer explains that the Summer Sale pricing invites hackers and griefers to snap up multiple copies of the game, assign them to “smurf” accounts, and wreak havoc with the community. These people create new Steam accounts with just the one game, so banning results in a loss of only that title. Since CS:GO’s cheat reporting depends on other players reviewing replays, it’s easy for hackers to dodge justice. Most people will not take the time to report the infractions. They have better things to do than mess with the Overwatch reporting system. The Steam Sale means it’s a hacker’s paradise!
It sounds crazy that players would buy multiple copies of a game just to burn through accounts by cheating, but these are people that subscribe to cheat software. This is how they get their kicks. The next time some guy is shooting you through walls, you may be able to thank the sale for it.
Rust is starting over. Facepunch Studios has announced that the “experimental” build of Rust on Steam will now be installed along with the main version. Players can easily choose which one to launch and see the progress being made as they rebuild the systems. Garry Newman told PCGamesN that they’re scrapping everything in their multiplayer survival game because much of the code was based on a concept for a different game. Cash4Kills was an open world assassination prototype that was abandoned in favor of Rust. Unfortunately, it sounds like Cash4Kills was a more intriguing game.
“The one thing we don’t like about the latest Hitman games is that the game seems to be about finding out what the level designer wants you to do, rather than just working out the best place to kill a guy. We wanted it to be all free-form, with bullet entry stats, bonuses for clean kills and for being unspotted, sharable replays, then cash rewards in a backend that you could use to buy new weapons etc. So you’d only get one chance at a kill and if you fucked it up you couldn’t replay, you’d have to wait for the next contract via your real email.”
Newman and Facepunch hope that as people see more progress on the experimental branch, players will migrate and make it their default. Rust is available on Steam early access.
Lawyers are sometimes excellent at writing unintentional comedy. For instance, the lawyers for Rebellion, the UK developer of such games as Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2, Rogue Trooper, and Rogue Warrior, which isn’t actually the same thing as Rogue Trooper. Rogue Warrior is the game that finally roused itself from its deep slumber for the end credits, which played various Mickey Rourke soundbites over a laidback 80s porn groove. I recommend putting it on a loop for your next candlelight dinner. As for Rogue Trooper (pictured), I have no idea what it is. And I even reviewed it for 1up.
Anyway, the Rogue Warrior developers sued Ironclad, the developers of Sins of a Solar Empire, for having the temerity to use the word rebellion in one of their add-ons. These sorts of suits normally get announced and then quietly resolved without the lawyers sharing any of their hilarity with the rest of us. No such thing happened in the legal battle between Rebellion and Ironclad, which went to court and was subsequently decided in Ironclad’s favor on the basis of people in America having the First Amendment right to use generic words without some shovelware developer in the UK getting all pissy and attempting some half-assed extortion racket because they haven’t figured out how to make a decent Judge Dredd game already. So now we can read the substance of Rebellion’s complaint to Ironclad, taken from their initial cease and desist letter:
There can be only one reason for choosing the name “REBELLION” as the name of this game, and that is that it is identical to our client’s name. The choice of name for your game is designed to confuse members of the public into believing that this game emanated from our client or has been endorsed by our client. Alternatively, you have chosen REBELLION as the game’s name to take unfair advantage of the reputation of our client or to dilute the distinctiveness of our client’s reputation. All these actions are types of passing off that the choice of REBELLION by your company is intended to perpetrate on our client’s goodwill. If you are allowed to misrepresent your game in the way indicated, it will cause damage to our client’s goodwill.
For one half of the story and more legal documents than you can throw a habeas corpus at, read Ironclad’s account here. For Rebellion’s side of the story, well, their lawyers’ cease and desist letter speaks volumes. I find they’re best read to the end credits theme from Rogue Warrior. “Hope you assholes like fireworks”, indeed.
Oculus has formerly responded to the lawsuit ZeniMax media filed against the Facebook-owned VR company last month. In the response, Oculus contends that the accusations ZeniMax leveled at them regarding John Carmack’s theft of technology and sharing of proprietary code during his tenure is without merit. According to the original ZeniMax lawsuit, Oculus co-founder and inventor Luckey Palmer appropriated ZeniMax code and work from John Carmack while he was consulting on the VR Rift device. The lawyers from Oculus say that ZeniMax neglected to finalize a non-disclosure agreement that was given to Palmer to sign, and that they have evidence that shows they did not use ZeniMax technology while developing the Rift headset.
“By its conduct, express statements, and silence, ZeniMax understood that the Oculus Rift and the technology powering it belonged solely to Oculus VR and that Oculus VR had not infringed any of ZeniMax’s intellectual property rights or otherwise misappropriated any proprietary information of ZeniMax.”
The response goes on to accuse ZeniMax of trying to take advantage of the new Oculus owner Facebook, and their deep pockets. Now that the initial suit and formal response have been filed, the real battling can begin! Choose your side and fight!
Sega racked up roughly $72 million in microtransaction sales from Chain Chronicle since it’s launch last July. Sega and parent company Sammy Holdings revealed the staggering sum in their investor strategy presentation. The free-to-play mobile game allows players to make in-app purchases to mitigate grinding and boost their characters. Like Puzzle & Dragons, it’s been something of a runaway success with its largely Japanese audience. It’s got all the stuff you’d expect from a JRPG mobile game. There’s battling, and sexy character cards, and weird in-game forms of currency to obfuscate how much the player may be spending at any time. (You can watch some gameplay here.) $72 million! Is it any wonder why Sega plans to release 30 new free-to-play mobile games within the next year?
Chain Chronicle is available on iOS and Android, but you’ll need to have a Japanese account for both services to access the game. Sega is developing a version for the PlayStation Vita that will also be free-to-play.
Bohemia Interactive has released details of the upcoming Bootcamp Update for Arma III. The update adds training scenarios to help new players learn to play the game. Instead of just relying on the typical linear shooter tutorial in which a drill sergeant yells at the player to run through obstacles and shoot at targets on a range, Bohemia is crafting a suite of scenarios encompassing the full range of gameplay that Arma III offers. Included in the update is a set of virtual reality simulations with Tron-inspired assets that can be used with the in-game editor to create new scenarios.
“Because we know that different kinds of players like to learn in different ways, we’ve approached Bootcamp’s content with a fairly open mind. The result is a fairly diverse set of content and features. What binds these modes together is a sense of achievement: we want players to know that – although it may be different from other games – Arma is far from impenetrable.”
The update will also come with adjustments to weapon sway and fatigue, as well as Steam Workshop support for addons, like new vehicles and terrain.
